The idea for the original Mario Drinks A Glass of Milk came to as I woke up at 9am to go to a lecture, on 25th March 2019. It was just one those silly ideas that just come to you for no real reason. It may have been based on those silly fake game box-arts people were making where video game characters do mundane things, usually involving taxes or going to a fridge to drink some milk. The heavy Mega Man influence and references was just because I'm a big fan of the series, and I thought it would be funny to see Mario suddenly teleport out of a stage.

It was very convenient that April Fools Day was just coming up, as it gave me, someone who was only ever working on large game projects, an excuse to make something much smaller. I made the "game" in seven days, and posted it on the mainsite. Turns out, people seemed to enjoy the game's humor and its silly concept. But obviously it didn't really provide much in the gameplay department, and it could be beaten in less than 5 minutes. Nevertheless, it managed to take a couple of awards the following year at the MFGG Awards. It's funny to think that a game about Mario drinking milk can even accomplish that. In addition, the game got sent to Vinesauce (which I've been watching since 2014) and was streamed live to thousands of people... which was both scary and incredible. I didn't see it live as it was way too late for my timezone, but to wake up and see one of my favourite streamers had played my game, and there was fan art of it... wow, definitely the highlight of 2019 for me. I still wonder who exactly sent it to Vinny...

(Next part describes the second game's development, please play it before you read this!)

I felt at this point, it was reasonable for me to want to continue with this weird concept that managed to gain attention rivaling that of my other fangame series (I hope you know which one). And, you know, there were some people who said they wanted more. For the sequel, I wanted to actually follow up what the end of the first game set up, so that Luigi, being established as lactose-intolerant, could take the spotlight instead. The other thing I wanted to do was simple: make it an actual game. So I decided to stay in my comfort zone, and turn it into a 2D Mario/Mega Man hybrid. Whereas I limited myself to one week of development with the first game, this game took me two months (12th June to 12th August) although it was built off the first game's code. I wanted to start this game way sooner than I ended up doing, as I had the basic idea planned out not long after I did the original, but y'know, life never goes exactly as you want, so I had other stuff I needed to first.

The gameplay that the Familkom Drink System brings is inspired by Luigi's Mansion (which I had only recently played for the first time), Mega Man, and Splatoon (in fact some code is borrowed from that Splatoon game jam game I did a couple of months ago, so doing that ended up helping me with this game). The entire game is also essentially a Wily Fortress from a Mega Man game, whereas the first game had a traditional Mega Man stage select. At this point, the series might have the secondary identity of being a Mario/Mega Man crossover. One last thing I tried to do was actually give the game some replay value, something few joke games can provide, with the different upgrades, mixing ingredients, and some differing routes, as well as something special after you beat the game. Try and find as many secrets as you can, by the way!