Party Animals: what kind of animal would represent your role in society?

When I first wrote about Party Animals, I mentioned that there was no confirmation of the whole game being based on the Philippine elections. However, recent concept art has shown that it does represent not only Philippine elections, but Philippine society as well. Take a look at some of the character designs that represent the different types of the Philippine people.

The goat kapitan

The goat kapitan represents the many Philippine indigenous tribes who are still having a rough time trying to fit in modern society. Artist Ryan Sumo from the Party Animals development team said he wanted to create a character that would represent all of the tribes instead of referencing a single one.

The chieftain pelican

This character represents Philippine tribes outside of the city. It is described as a character that “constantly worries about how modernization is affecting their way of life, and where he is going to get his next fish”. I believe this represents the Filipinos who aren’t quite ready to embrace modernization, but who also don’t really do much about it as they live their daily lives with the mantra: “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there”. The main difference from the goat kapitan is that this character is much closer to civilization and is trying to adapt, but because it isn’t equipped with necessary knowledge, it can’t quite get there yet.

The dog kapitan

This is by far my favorite representation of all. Although the Philippines is known to take so much pride in being a Catholic country, it is worth noting that there are a lot of other major religions present in its society. And a lot of them have so much sway over its followers that they tend to affect the government, despite a law separating the Church and the State. Election candidates strive to earn the favor of various religious sects in the country to help improve their chances of winning.

Filipinos are also known to be overly-sensitive and they do get offended by anything that has even the slightest link to religion. I thought it was pretty clever for the Party Animals development team to use a fictional religion whose symbol is a bone. If that offends anyone then I don’t know what won’t anymore.

The pirate/merchant/smuggler lizard