with people and their pets in ushanka hats," Sternberg said.

The first new character to be unlocked was the Proletaricat, a grey
cat ina military hat and jacket, on August 24. The Proletaricat also
appears in the Russian Subway Dogs campaign updates, urging
fans to promote the campaign through social media.

“There's a bit of a meta-fiction thing going on in the updates,
where half of the updates are me updating the backers, and
the other half that have to do with the missions are from the
Proletaricat,” Sternberg said. “Having that fictional element in
each of the updates is something | haven't seen a lot of other
Kickstarter campaigns do. It's worked really well. I’ve gotten a
really positive response from it.”

Russian Subway Dogs will have a variety of playable characters
in the game, including the original dog, the ones unlocked
from the Backer Missions, and guest pups. The guest pups are
dog characters from other projects that Spooky Squid Games
connected with through the Russian Subway Dogs Kickstarter
campaign.

The first guest pup to join the game was Question Hound from KC
Green's comic Gunshow. In the single-page, six-panel “This Is Fine”
comic, the brown dog in a brown bowler hat sits at his kitchen
table drinking coffee while the room burns down around him.
Despite the fire, he declares, “This is fine.” By the last panel, he is
badly burned by the flames.

The comic explored people's naivety to the disasters around them.
It later became a popular meme among the college crowd.

“Its first iteration as a meme was used to show what it felt like to
be college kids during finals,” Green said, adding that only the
first two panels are used in the meme: the first one with Question
Hound sitting at the table in a burning kitchen and the second one
with him saying, “This is fine.”

From August 3 to September 2, Green ran a Kickstarter campaign
to fund the making of a plush version of Question Hound.

“| was pretty certain we were going to reach our goal, but not
certain as to how big it would get,” he said.

The campaign goal was $35,000, with rewards starting at $25 for
one Question Hound plush, and ranging to $275 for 10 (with some
additional goodies thrown in). The campaign raised an astounding
$454,717 from 12,705 backers.

“| felt pretty good. Pretty relieved too,” he said. “Then stressed, as
it dawned on me the amount of work to be done.”

Thanks to a tweet about Kickstarter projects with dogs that tagged
both Russian Subway Dogs and Question Hound, the artists were
able to connect. Green turned out to be a fan of Spooky Squid
Games’ They Bleed Pixels, so the partnership was a good match.
Sternberg suggested adding a pixel version of Question Hound

to Russian Subway Dogs and Green agreed, leading to Question
Hound becoming a playable pup in the game.

“Question Hound was based on an old drawing of a cartoon
character | drew in junior high a bunch of times. | never thought he
would ascend to this level of infamy,” Green said.

A tweet also connected Spooky Squid Games with Sukeban
Games. Like Russian Subway Dogs, Sukeban Games’ cyberpunk
bartending game VA-11 Hall-A features pixel art and dogs. The
game has players work their way through an interactive narrative
that is decided based on what drinks players serve to their
customers, including dogs. Two of the dogs from VA-11 Hall-A,
Nacho and Rad Shiba, will be playable guest pups in Russian
Subway Dogs.

Nacho, a Shiba, will have a cyberpunk look with an electronic
eyepiece and a sweater. Rad Shiba will appear in a pair of aviator
sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt.

“| always like doing weird crossover stuff,” Sternberg said.

For more information, check out Russian Subway Dogs on
Kickstarter.com, or the company’s official website SoookySquid.

com.