Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 265: The Messenger

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

Take a look into the genesis, classic inspirations, and development of Sabotage Games' double-retro indie hit The Messenger as Jeremy Parish speaks to creators Thierry Boulanger and Martin Brouard.

This week in Retronauts, The Secrets of Guidein a Ninja. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Retronauts episode. remotely. Once again, it's an interview episode. I am Jeremy Parrish. And with me on the other end of the line, we have the guys from Sabotage, who have created a very cool game called The Messenger, which you probably have played at this point. If you haven't, how have you missed it? It's been in the news lately. You guys have been racking up awards and so on and so forth. So introduce yourselves. Let the folks at home know who we're talking to. All right. So my name is Tieri. I'm one of the two founders of

Sabotage. And I do basically game direction, game design, and writing. And I'm Martin Bruyar, and I'm the other co-founder of Sabotage. And I like to say that I'm the support character doing all kind of administrative

marketing and support community management work to help make sure that the team just makes the best possible game. Well, you know, anyone who's played the messenger knows that the shopkeeper is a very important character in the game. So I think it all works out. So, yeah, I mean, I think you guys have created a really interesting game because it wears its classic influences very much on its sleeve.

But it combines those influences in a very fresh and interesting way. And it also does a really great job of kind of capturing what was so great about those classics, like the things that really made people love them. It's not just the look of it. It's not just like, you know, the design of it, but also, you know, everything on the way, all the way down to the basic controls and the responsiveness. And I feel like that's something where so many people sort of, you know, miss the ball when they're trying to recapture that sort of classic spirit. And yeah, the messenger really, really hits the right notes. And it feels good when you play it. And I think that's a big part of its success. I don't know if you guys want to, you know, talk a little bit. about that and kind of what inspired it and the links that you've gone through to make sure the game plays, you know, the way that we remember the classics that we love. Right. And you touch on something really important at the end of that question, which is the way we remember them, right? Which is different than the way they actually were. You know, sometimes we have pink

glasses when we look back on these games and maybe the controls were a bit more stiff than we remember and the music could get repetitive, you know, and the difficulty, it wasn't always fair, you know, and so it was kind of, the intention was to strike a balance between the things that feel retro, but then all the things that don't really hold up anymore, you know, to leave those aside or to rethink them, you know, so that it still, it has the comfort of a modern game, while still striking the, the chord of what was good there with the nostalgia, Yeah, for my own part, I kind of recently experienced that. I mean, I don't think I experienced that too often because I just never stopped playing old games. And so I feel like I have a pretty good handle on, you know, how they actually have held up. But I did recently go back to replay Super Castlevania 4 on Super NES. And I've always loved that game. But I went back to it with a more critical eye and realized, you know, like this game is really good, but it doesn't quite hold up to a lot of other Castlevania games. There's some things about it that I feel they kind of, you know, they ended up striking out in the wrong direction and didn't think enough about how to refine it to work with the new mechanics and everything.

So, you know, even a game that I feel like I know as well as I do as that one, like sometimes you go back and you're just like, oh, wait, hmm, that's weird. Yeah, no, for sure. And, you know, and it's this, it was the same with everything in the game that has to do with like the story and all of that to, to, to. You know, just onboarding the player in a simpler story so that it's more reminiscent of older games, you know, because the game goes places, you know. It gets pretty meta and it gets deeper than the initial impression that you get of it. And that was part of the idea as well was to start set up the adventure with a very simple premise, you know, that you think you know what you're getting into.

And then, you know, it transitioned to something, I don't want to say necessarily something more, but it's definitely something else, you know. Which if it was like that upfront, it maybe could have broken that initial feeling that we wanted to cater to, you know, for players. It was all, you know, playing with players' expectations, you know, and I think it's something that went pretty well. Yeah, that was something, you know, and I first talked to you guys about this game about a year ago, and I think you were kind of on the fence about, like, how much you wanted to say about the game's big twist, because it really does cast the entire experience in a whole new light when, you know, you make. I feel like it's okay to spoil it now. It's, it's been out for a while, and I think a lot of people have played it, and by the time this episode comes out, the DLC will be out. So, you know, I think we can say, like, the big twist is that it goes from being an NES-style, straightforward action game to being more of a super NES, like Sega Genesis style, non-linear adventure.

Right. And, yeah, like, I guess, you know, that's kind of like a big philosophical challenge. for someone who's creating something like that, I would think, you know, to say, like, well, we have this cool thing and it's going to completely change perspectives on what we've created, but, like, do we lose that impact if we give it away in advance? But then on the other hand, if we don't give it away in advance, how do we get people interested and make them say, oh, there's something more here than just, you know, like the surface level?

Exactly. And another challenge there, too, was that for it not to, to, we didn't want the people to think that it was just a gimmick, you know. it's not just that the game that the frame gives and it becomes more about exploration is that because we get there in the story that's the best way to support

what the new quest is gameplay wise you know and it was also hard it's like with the 8 and 16 bit transitioning you know it ties into the narrative and it's a very important moment but if you just look at the moment at the trailer sorry it's like ah the game shifts

back and forth sure it's a neat it's a neat thing you know it was really hard to convey, you know, just coming out of nowhere, no one has ever heard of us. You know, no, it's not just a flashy thing, you know, it's, it's, we try to tie it all together, you know. And the fact that we were speaking about a year ago, exactly, if I remember, and that's what we were wondering, even when we were talking to you, but do we reveal stuff like that? And after a year now, we, I think we're, we're pretty happy we took the decision.

And one of the thing is also that the game, uh, waits for many hours before actually switching to 16-bit and going to that big twist and some of the discussion we had with some of the other publishers we talked to during the year before that and people were like oh but how about

you bring that earlier and stuff like that and we're like no that's that's not what the game is it really has to do with the story that you think is about to be you know to be done to be complete and then something happens and we move to another you know a completely

these new experience. Yeah, I think it's, you know, definitely this isn't the first game to have tried, you know, having like a big narrative or mechanical shift a fair ways into the game. And I feel like in every case, you know, there's, there are a lot of people who just kind of dismissed the game at first sight. They're like, oh, well, I've seen this before. I remember, I don't know if you guys played Shin-Megame Tensei 4 for 3DS. Yeah.

But, yeah, so, you know, that starts out. It seems like kind of a traditional medieval RPG. and then, you know, 10 hours into the game, like, that's a long ways. All of a sudden, the real game starts, and you enter, like, post-apocalyptic Tokyo, and you're like, oh, wait, I'm not in, like, a medieval magical kingdom after all. I'm actually above the ruins of, you know, the real world. But so many people just saw that part of it. And, you know, that's kind of what Atlas promoted before the game launched was the medieval aspect of it,

that they were like, oh, this doesn't feel like what I want from this series. And, you know, not knowing about the game. the twist going into it, like it had a huge impact on me. But, you know, so many people just rode off the game as like, well, they've really lost the plot with us. I don't want to play this game. And that was one of the challenge was to make a demo because we went to Pax many times before the launch of the game. And for us to show the game, we needed to find a way to have, you know, the players in maybe 15 minutes experience that start of the game. That's really 8-bit, you know, and then quickly make it so that they could actually see some of the stuff

that's coming later on, but that you need to be, you know, an experienced player to normally navigate through. So that was an interesting challenge. I'm interested in talking about sort of the big twist and how the game plays after that because it's not just like you go from 8 bit to 16 bit and just like the game changes because you have the ability to switch back and forth every time, like not at every time, but you know, switch back and forth kind of at free will, not not. quite, but, you know, there's, let me, let me start over. Like, you have, it's kind of hard to, it's kind of abstract, you know, kind of hard to explain. You have the ability to switch back and forth as

you need, I suppose. And a lot of the game has been designed around that. So that's, you know, like from the design perspective, that's what, what fascinates me, because it seems like you kind of had to design these stages, like every area of the game to work on multiple levels. So I'm, yeah, I'd like to talk about that and how much, you know, how much went into that? Like, was that the bulk of your development efforts? Where, you know, what took the most time for you guys? The main thing was, well, it wasn't in different steps. The first stage was really finding the controls, like nailing the controls.

And that was before any art came into the game. It was just like a stick figure with gray boxes, you know? And it's like, we don't want to make this beautiful until it's fun, you know? Because otherwise you kind of delude yourself into thinking your own. onto something, you know. For many months it was just that. But then when it really came to level design, the first thing we did was

work in different vignettes, like little flashes of just one screen, you know, or two or three screens. And like this is, and really based on the core mechanics of the character, mainly the Cloud Step, how, you know, you have a double jump that you need to earn by hitting something in the air and you can chain your jumps as long as you can hit some

targets, you know. And so Working with that premise, we wanted to make sure that it was fun that we had, like, it really gave opportunities in level design. And so we came up with hundreds of just one-screen moments that were fun to play, you know, that felt good. And some of them were harder and some of them were easier. And so we kind of like ranked them roughly by difficulty, you know, and then we knew, okay, this is how much we have to sprinkle over the whole thing. And then, so we kind of like approach level design from both ends. So one was more moment to moment, making sure you always had something to look for and execute and feel rewarded moment to moment. And the other side was like, oh, the more adventure, if you were just running around and there was no combat or anything, you know, how do each level all tie together?

And the 8-bit portion of the game is actually cut out out of the more open exploration bit, you know? So it's a linear cut-out portion of it that wasn't like tacked on afterwards or anything, you know? Yeah, that's interesting. I feel like when people make these sort of non-linear exploratory games, they tend to forget that, you know, it needs to be interesting in the moment to moment. There are a lot of games I've played, you know, Metroidvania style games I've played where like the overall shape of the game is really interesting and, you know, you're like, oh, I want to go explore and see what's out there. But then, you know, within the individual stages, like the individual screens, you're kind of like, this isn't that interesting. And I feel like, you know, the very best game, Especially I look back at, you know, like, the Mega Man games on NES or, you know, Shovel Night, which is very heavily patterned after Mega Man in Castlevania. Like, those do a really good job of giving you just little kind of discrete series of challenges and, like, play areas. That's kind of the basis of their design. But not a lot of people do that. Is that something that you kind of came upon organically?

Or was it something that you kind of came across as like the secrets of? great design that some developer talked about and you were like oh interesting it's a lot of that is a and there's a great a gamasutra article on irrational design um it looks at the you know the the latest raymond games um and so raymond origins more specifically you know and how they approach design and our level designer has been working in games for it must be about 20 years at this point he used to be at ubesoft you know so he worked Prince of Persia warrior within and the two thrones and then the first Assassin's Creed and he really has all that all that savvy this this idea of um you know how to onboard players and how

to teach them things organically and how to ramp up difficulty and that after a difficulty spike you could go you should go a little easier so that they can feel the mastery for a little while you know things like that and so all those principles um you know we just had a lot of discussion just to make sure that we had the proper mindset when approaching you know level design and and in the we iterated and reviewed and polished and you know because we basically the trick to do to getting it right is doing it at least eight times you know and that's true for every single screen and every single basically whatever we touch you know um so yeah it's it's it's all that that theoretical framework applied to an indie game instead of a big triple a title you know it's kind of how we how do we boil it down uh for for that to make sense to go to have that quality you know and it's It's all things that you can see in this infamous review of Mega Man X, you know, how everything is so perfectly on boarded that you just, they teach you things without taking

the controller out of your hands, you know? Right. I guess this kind of gets to something important about your studio, which is that you're indie and you're a new studio, but you guys aren't newcomers. Like, you have a lot of experience. So how is your, you know, the previous work that you've been involved in, how is that help shape the messenger? I mean, the main thing for me was I wanted, because I used to do servicing, you know.

So like making games for, because there's a movie coming out, you know, things like that. And I just always had that thing where I wanted to make a game that I would play. I've always wanted to make the messenger. And it was hard in that context, you know. But definitely like gathering experience and just learning how to deliver on time and unbubborn. You know, because when you have clients, you know, it's always, it can get pretty crazy. And so it was really like everyone at Sabotage, we've worked together before and we've delivered together and we have a very good work ethic, you know, and we cooperate and we have a sense of like, you know, hitting the dates and whatnot. And doing all work properly so that it doesn't come back and we need to polish again, you know, or at least the least amount possible. And so all that work ethic that we develop, you know, was applied to making an indie game.

Yeah, and on my side, I was working at the same company, I was working, but instead of being on the servicing side, I was responsible for the IP creation side. So I had, you know, this fun little job of releasing over 20 games on pretty much every platform over the last eight years. But the thing that was still a big company that had the servicing mindset, so they would not necessarily, you know, give me the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. team members that I would have been, you know, the good ones to put on that project or that project. So it's a lot of games that we put out that we learn from some of our mistakes, from trial and error working together. So when we started sabotage with Tiri and me, I knew that Tierra had a perfectly clear vision. We knew that we would attract the right talent, the people that we actually really wanted to work together with. And so that made for a pretty strong team.

All right, so now that the game has been out for, I don't know, it came out in the summer, right? I'm trying to remember exactly when. And of August, yeah. August, okay, yeah. So now that it's been out for, you know, looking back and you've got your DLC on the way, like, are, you know, as a sort of soul-surging question, like, is there anything that you wish you had done differently with the messenger? Or do you feel like it was a pretty smooth process that, you know, you hit on all the right notes and you took all the right steps? Huh. That's a big question.

I mean, we're certainly happy with the outcome, you know, the, the, you know, the, the, you know, the reception and all of that. I don't think there's any one thing for me, at least for me, I don't think there's any one thing I wish we did differently in the final product. Though it was, we had it bad for the last few months on the project, we worked a lot. You know, there was a time to market and the decision was made to hit that. You know, as a startup, you know, after two years and a half. It's about time you put a game out, you know, if you're going to be afloat, especially with only senior talent on the payroll.

So, I mean, all in all, it's great, and now we're in a good position. So, no, I mean, it was just a fun right, I think. Terry often says that this is the game that you wanted to make, right? It's not something that you had to cut, you know, stuff that you really wished you put in and stuff like that. When we discuss the game, we're basically, well, this is, this is what. what we wanted to, you know, to do. Have you guys ever had that experience before, you know, working for other companies, like where you came away from a project and were like, yeah, I did, like, this was exactly

the game I wanted to create, or was that something that's, you know, a new experience being able to work for yourself? I think it's really much a new experience. I've had the chance to make games that I thought I was pretty happy with that after a while I was like, I wish I'd thought of that or, you know, I could have done better on that front. But I don't know for you, Thierry, but this is pretty unique being able to do our own thing the way we want. Oh, yeah, I mean, yeah. No, no, I couldn't be happier and more.

No, for me, it's really the first time that I'm really 100% happy with something I made and that I'm proud of it and that it's a game that I would actually play or recommend to a friend who's a gamer, you know? It really went for me from day job to actually, you know, activating passion and like acting on it. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned something interesting that, you know, the studio has been around for two and a half years. Has the game actually been around, like in development that long? Like, was this basically the first thing you started with sabotage? Yeah. So it started in 2015 probably around spring of

2015 about a year before the company was founded so the universe and all the characters and all that it's since I was in elementary school you know but and then 10 years ago I did the obligatory like terrible prototype when I was in learning coding in school

you know I did that in flash but yeah so spring of 2015 is when Phil and myself Phil is level designer I was talking about earlier. We started just prototyping, just the two of us. And it was just based, it was around the cloud step mechanic, you know, and they're sticking to walls and kind of like, you know, bringing back the Ninja Guide and spirit, you know.

And so it was like that for about a year. It was just like us prototyping. And then the composer came in and he did one track. And we did a little bit of level art just to support to have like a first prototype that's also visually in the right ballpark, you know. So, yeah, about a year before we founded the company. Yeah, Therry came to me and said, do you want to try this prototype?

I want to have your opinion on there. And I already had an highest team of Thierry as a programmer, and I knew he was interested in, you know, designing too, but I didn't know that much about it. But when he showed me the prototype, I heard that rainbow dragonized tune and I felt those controls on the Cloud Step, And I literally said, all right, I need to move on.

Let's start a company and we can do this. And I'm sure we can do something really good with that. And Ciri was like, are you, are you sure? And I was. And I never made a better decision in my life, I think. How much did the game change from your original conception of it over the course of development? Like did you have the, you know, the bit changing?

I guess, if you want to, the generational shift, was that something built in from the start? Because you talked about, you know, the cloud stepping, obviously. And, and you've said before that, you know, sort of the, getting the, the basics of play controls down was really important. But I'm curious about all the other things, like the shop and, and, you know, the characters and the, the world and the, like the time skip, basically, like, how many of those things sort of evolved over the course of the game? and where do those ideas come from? At first it was the wall climbing, the cloud step and the wing suit, like the gliding, and that's all there was to the main character. The shop was there, but not the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper was for GDC 2017.

Yeah, we put together a quick demo, and I just had to have, you know, like one interaction in the shop to convey that, you know, you can enter the checkpoints and buy upgrades for your character. And there had to be a bit of flavor text, you know, to support that. And so the only way I know to write unfiltered is to kind of like be a bit cynical, you know, and pick fun of cliches and make things self-aware. So that's how I wrote it just as a quick thing to be like, look, it's just a demo, you know. And I also put in the first cabinet rent, which is a super long philosophical lecture

where you can't skip the text if you interacted with the cabinet too much, you know. I just thought it was silly, you know, as a demo to let people who try it know that, you know, we have ideas, you know, even though it was still a pretty humble prototype. And the reaction was so good that it was like, yeah, you know, I mean, why not? It's how, because it was also my first gig as a writer. And so it's the only way I know to write, so I just went all in. And so then, so it's all based on. Again, you know, I'm very wary of gimmicks, you know, so I don't want a thing to just be there because it's flashy.

It should support the story we're trying to tell. For me, it's like the story first, you know, even though if the story is light in those types of games, I think every game mechanic should support the story that you're telling. All the moves that our character has, it makes sense for an injure, you know, to move like that. You play a hero and you look the part, you know. But so to touch on the bit-shifting, It was always in this scenario that you would go into the future, you know, and that it was all a loop and that with the time travel. And the idea of the 16-bit was there before, but it wasn't there in the pitch document when I recruited the team, and the first time we tried to get the game funded.

Just because I assume, like, we can't do double all of the assets. It's just ridiculous and cost, you know, just for a neat little, hey, you time travel, so we support it visually. like the effort of doubling everything is you know well I mean it's it's literally the double so I it felt like a good place to to save some money to get the game out earlier you know and the first time around because we got funded through the CMF which is the Canada media fund you know like there's bags of money flying around in Canada and so we didn't pass the first time and we were just in the car going to Montreal you know to try and follow up on some discussions and we were just bouncing in the car and I was like hey you know another thing I thought

was it would be cool to do the 16 bit and double everything to support our time travel he was like and Martin was like dude that's that's the hook I was like I don't know I don't know that it's a hook I just think it's a cool way to support time travel he's like no no that's the hook we need a hook that's how you get something funded and so we pitched again with that and it was like yeah that this is cool so now you can do it and so that's how it basically unlocked everything So the time travel, so basically, I guess to answer the question more briefly is the scenario, like all the story beats were there, but the way to support them properly through gameplay and through like what happens and how it plays out on the screen, that kind of like, you know, emerged as we did it for the most part. All right. So, so really the, you know, you were worried initially that having the sort of asset doubling would, you know, make the game impossible to create, but it was actually what made it possible. Yeah, in a way.

And it's also one of the things that got a lot of people talking about it and got people interested in trying it or, you know, learning a little bit more about it. And then when they played it, most people really liked it. But I don't know if they would have played it or talked about it if there was not that little, hey, check this out. This is original. It was definitely the one-liner that got everyone's attention and why the GIFs look so cool. It's how we get people's attention in two seconds, you know? So it really helped for that.

So it was kind of like treated as a gimmick through press and marketing at first, but looking back, it was a good call. Yeah, so another interesting play mechanic is Corbel, the demon who punishes you for death. And, you know, that's, I feel like a lot of people, people who make retro style games are too caught up on the idea of, you know, really punishing people for death a lot. And, you know, even Mega Man 11. I don't know if you guys have played that, but, like, it has this lives mechanic that, you know, it's very much like the NES games, but it just feels, it feels kind of awkward and dated because Mega Man 11 has much larger stages,

much longer stages than the NES games. So, you know, when you make it to the boss room and you run out of lives, you're like, oh, God, I have to play this whole long. level all over again, as opposed to on NES where you were like, okay, well, you know, I know the level now, so it'll take me two or three minutes to get back to the boss. That's no big deal. But, but yeah, the messenger just kind of gets rid of that idea and it comes up with an alternate form of punishment. So I'm, yeah, I'm interested to talk to learn more about where that concept came from. Was he part of the plan all along, or did that evolve as the game kind of came into shape? Right. The main thing for, for, for,

When it comes to Corbel, the idea was always to rethink the lives and continues system because it didn't really age well. But as the designer, I didn't know going forward what that would look like. But I knew that it had to be something different. And I really liked how Shovel might the Dark Souls kind of deal, you know, how you drop a bit of gold. But if you make it up to where you died, it cancels the penalty. But if you die again, then it's lost. It's like that works really well.

But oh no, it's been done. already, you know, you can't copy, just copy their death mechanic, but it's still a proof that you can, you can revisit that, you know, because you have to do infinite lives the way people treat games nowadays, you know, even if it looks retro. You won't beat a large game in one sitting, even if it looks retro, so you have to, but then you still need a penalty for dying. Otherwise, the challenge is meaningless, and all you see is that you're running back. So at first it was, at first it was an amulet. That was the first, the first iteration of Quarble

because I was still because it's my first game as a designer you know so I didn't have like all all the chops to properly I guess you know I had to learn a lot as I did it and felt the game and felt something was wrong and so I developed some principles

of how we should add things to the game you know and at first it was an amulet that you wear the shopkeeper would give it to you the first time you entered a shop and it was basically charged and it would take you back to the latest checkpoint, but it would get depleted in the process.

And so by looting some currency, you would replenish the amulet, and until it was full, you wouldn't earn currency, you know? And once it's recharged, it's ready to save you, so now you can make money again. But if you die before it's recharged, you would go back to the beginning of the level because it doesn't have the magic.

It needs to take you to the checkpoint instead. And it turned out that was, kind of annoying and so in looking at those problems I basically came up with that rule that moving forward everything we would do in the game would support not only the gameplay but also the narrative you know and so and also

remove as much friction as possible you know so and I think removing friction was the main point the main guideline for gameplay you know like how you can hit while running it doesn't stop you you know if you press forward and time all of your attacks and jumps you can just

keep moving you know there should never be any cost or hindrance to your actions. At first, it was two cloud steps maximum, you know, in one go, then it doesn't, it won't charge up anymore. It's like, I'll just make it infinite and do level design accordingly, you know. And so all of that, like removing limitations, removing like cool downs or counters or anything you have to track that's not directly your character on screen, timing your attacks, you know. But yeah, so basically the amulet was like, yeah, it should be a character instead because

then we can build the world some more. so it won't only serve game play it will also serve world building so that's how basically that's how corbel came to be it went from an amulet to to uh and then the idea was that instead of just charging it and there's an additional penalty if it's not fully charged or whatever it's just that whatever he's just paying himself back and leaves when he feels like leaving you know so yeah yeah and that's that it's at that point where uh something that really pleased me is he said it's kind of a duns cat mechanic because we were at that point we were really thinking of the game for streamers and for speed runners and having corbel follow you around is basically

having a dunce cap and so that's something that i thought would be really interesting because if somebody's speed running the game and corbels there then it means that you know it just messed up and i think that really fits well into this modern aspect of making video games is yes the players are you know a part of the target audience but also the viewers yeah interesting um you know the the amulet concept you were just talking about kind of reminds me of the credit card in Kid Icarus. Was that something on your mind when you designed that? Wow.

That's a, I just recently did kind of a play-through and a retrospective on that. And, you know, the credit card is really interesting. It's definitely not within the fiction of Kid-Icarus. What is a credit card doing in ancient Greece? But, you know, someone asked, like, have any other games done that? And I couldn't really think of anything. So I kind of feel like maybe you guys were the closest to doing that. but then you decided it's annoying, so you're not doing it at all.

Right? And, you know, I mean, it could very well have subconsciously, you know, given the idea for that, but I don't remember specifically being like, yeah, this work, we should do something like this, but, you know, played so many games that it's bound to bleed into, you know, everything we do. I'd actually be interested in talking about that, because this is, after all, retronauts, and I'm sure people would love to know more about sort of like the classic influences you brought into the messenger. Obviously, there's, you know, the Kidaker, not the Kidaker's, the Ninja Guidant, but, you know, I feel like there's a lot more going on here than just that. And, you know, if you build a game around one classic game, then why not just, like, make a fan game? I mean, this is definitely something more than that. So, yeah, like, this is, I guess this is the part where I ask you, like, kind of grill you about your history with games. And, like, what is it about, you know, games like Ninja Guyton that made you want to create something along those lines? well the main thing for ninja guidance is I just felt that the ninja was the perfect hero you know because it's just a shape and a function you know it's not necessarily a strong personality you know just a hidden character it's just the assassin so you can easily project yourself into that character and then the rest of the world can have personality and flavor but your your character is like you're just this badass you just feels right like doing front flips you know who doesn't want to do that with the sword and everything for me it's the perfect basic hero you know um but as far as other games are concerned i mean i've i've pretty much played i don't want to say everything but like almost everything on nes and i still play the nes as much as you know any any any modern console ps4 switch or whatever i have a big retro collection you know and i revisit those classics like it was kind of like an excuse you know to to be on the clock

while analyzing you know river city ransom and and you know all these games going back to them with because it was part of the mandate, you know, to capture what they did properly. But as far as influences go, the top would have to be Chronal Trigger, Monkey Island. Yeah, River City Ransom is another big one. Super Mario RPG. And, well, obviously, Ninja Guiden. But, yeah, I've always been more... So Ninja Guiden was the one I liked when I was young,

more than, you know, Castlevania or Mega Man or when it came to a platform. that for me it was Ninja Guiding, especially Ninja Guiden too. sort of like what what inspirations specifically you took from some of those games you listed like obviously you know the Ninja Guide in like the whole game really captures the feel of Ryu like running around and

jumping and slashing and then you've added to that with the cloud step mechanic but you know like Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG like what was it about those games not necessarily an element that you said oh I want to do this in my game but you know I'm sure

in a lot of these cases it was just sort of like a spiritual connection where you were like, oh, I love the way this game does this. I need to recapture that essence, that feel. So yeah, that would be, I feel like, you know, the key to decrypting the messenger. Yeah, for sure. Well, it's kind of like how you can abstract, you know, or sorry, how you can look at something complex and make it an abstract concept and then reapply it from that route, you know, to something entirely different, you know. Well, even though obviously they're still all games. like um so you take something like oh the cloud step should be infinite you should you know at first

you only had to because we just think like that you should limit everything because the player has has boundaries to to mess around with you know um but then you play a game like chrono trigger and and for the first time at least back when i was 10 i'm playing a jrpg and i'm walking around on the world map and i'm free to explore like there's no random encounters there's nothing annoying if i want to go look, whether there's something on the peninsula, I don't feel this, there's going to be like three or four fights if I try to go there, you know, the perspective shifts. I'm not sure which way I was going when I come back, you know, and I felt while playing Tron Trigger, I was feeling how free it felt to like just be able to walk around on the world map and explore,

you know? And I was like, ah, it's good when there's less friction, you know. And so that's probably, you know, without consciously thinking about that, that's probably why when you play the messenger and you hit with your sword, your character keeps running unhindered, you know? Because I kind of like noticed, and it grew on me this idea that less friction is probably better. You can balance your game in a way that

you give less friction to the player that lets them maybe attack twice as fast. Okay, just double the held bar of every single enemy, you know? You will have a more fun game than if you have all the enemy held bar and you make your rate of fire half of what it is, you know? So it's all those

things, like how to make everything, like, always let the player do what they feel like they should be doing, you know? Or then you take a game like Super Mario RPG, which is, somehow it's fun to hang out in that game, you know? Like, it's fun to play it, but they just, they built a world with so many, like, um, like the characters are just so impressive, you know? You're just constantly like, what? I'm in the clouds now.

And, you know, there's like these little floating people with statues and, like, the bird, the eagle, the evil queen, and it's just like all those moments where you went so far from what I was expecting, you know? And it's like all those surprises and it's like, oh, okay, we should have surprises, you know? If you say wow, you know, only once, you're like, yeah, okay, wow, you know, say it twice, you're like, wow, wow, you know. If you get three wows, that's when you got to tell your friends, you know, that's when you, it's when you have to play it more than once and that's when, you know, and so it's kind of like remembering these experiences and what is there to a game that you want to go back to and how do you

how can you include the how can you include these types of elements in a way that you can express it in a different genre if that makes sense you know and so and music is a big part of it you know interesting yeah I did want to talk to you guys a little bit about the DLC you know by the time this podcast goes live that will be out already I think but at this at this moment it has not come out if I'm not mistaken unless I somehow missed it. No, no, no. It will be later in 2019, actually. Oh, so fairly late in 2019? We don't really know yet ballpark is probably spring or summer. Okay. Oh, so maybe this episode will predate that. I guess we'll see. But yeah, I'm actually kind of curious about what approach you're taking because I kind of feel like

the messenger is a, you know, it's a pretty complete experience. Like, I think back on the game, and I can't think of anywhere where I'd be like, oh, yeah, I'd shove some extra stages in there. And I know you guys are doing like a, like a beach theme. So I guess it's kind of like, you know, the bonus episode of the anime at the end where everyone's like, oh, let's go to the beach. The bad guy's beaten or whatever. But, yeah, like, how do you take a game that is designed to be this sort of complete, cohesive, exploratory world and add new content to that? So the DLC is a self-contained and it's linear. So you have an entry point.

So in the shop, there's a Scrying Orb. And through the Scrying Orb, you can see an alternate reality where something bad is going down. And if you don't prevent it, it will override your own reality. And that's bad. You want to avoid that, basically. And so you basically teleport into that alternate reality, and you just play a quick succession of like three levels, you know,

and then you resolve that and you're back into the shop. So it doesn't really affect the canon timeline or the, you know. So it's really just like, we call it a scenario, it's just a thing that you can play on its own as many times that you can repeat it if you want, you know. And so that's the model because to start tacking on things

to the Metroidvania portion can have its complications. And also because it was all wrapped up nicely, you know, And again, the idea was not necessarily to make a Metroidvania game. It was just, or if you're willing to call it that, I know some people are like, but anyway, the more open, you know, exploration bit. I have no problems with the term Metroidvania. Right. But so, well, or that the messenger is one eventually or not.

It's more what I meant. I know there's discussion on that. And we're not necessarily like holding on to that term. It's just how we call it because it's just easier. Yeah, it's just a word. Yeah, yeah. So, but yeah, so basically the idea was that since that, that whole part was supporting what you were doing in your second quest in the game,

which is to set the world straight, right? And the way you do that is not by going from point A to point B, it's by exploring on your own and finding things and unraveling mysteries, you know. And so it was a gameplay that supported the story, you know. Now the story of the DLC is essentially a rescue mission. So it makes sense for it to be point A to point B. So that's why it's like that, basically. So is the DLC going to be paid DLC,

or is it just going to be free for everyone who's bought the game? Free. So it's free for everybody who's bought the game and it's also already bundled into the game if you buy it after and it's the same price anyway. So it's an experiment. Basically, the first idea was to make a bigger DLC, which was an actual DLC that's separate and paid.

And it was like one of the bad guys, you know, taking revenge or trying to. trying to. And it was in three chapters, three acts. And so the picnic panic, the first DLC that we're doing is basically the first third of that big, bigger thing. And it's mostly an experiment. We want to see, like, does it generate enough visibility? Does it drive enough sales on the main game to justify the cost? And if it works, maybe we can do chapter two and three, or maybe we'll leave it there after chapter one. We'll really see, you know, based on how it's received.

Yeah, the idea is that we know that a lot of people are still on the fence, you know, should I buy this game? There's so many games up there. Does this game, is it worth $20 and stuff like that? So by adding, you know, some additional free content, we think a lot of people would say, hey, there's some support of the game. There's more content coming in. And for us, it's a great way to explore, you know, the business models of, you know,

launching an indie game in 2018, 2019, things are moving very fast in that space, and we need to understand how to make money to have the studio continue making games, but also build up trust with our fan base and gamers in general to tell them, you know, sabotage, it's all about, you know, we make games primarily because we're really passionate about video games. But yes, we need to sustain the studio, right? Yeah, so I guess that leads me to my final question, which is, you know, Terry, you said that this is kind of the game that you've wanted to create for years and years, and now you've created it. So what is there beyond this? Like, do you move on to new dream projects,

or do you keep kind of, you know, sort of like fine-tuning this and exploring more ideas within this sort of context. You know, and this is where, you know, Martin will kill me if I tell you what we're doing next. Because, you know, it'll all be revealed in due time. But the one thing I've always wanted to create was a world, you know, and not necessarily just a ninja action platformer, you know. And so the messenger is kind of like the first,

the first book of something bigger, you know. So we're still very much working on that same world, you know. But we can explore different, you know, game genres and things like that. And all the games that we will make will take place in the same universe, basically. Yeah, so it's just to say that we know exactly well Tieri, but now the team two knows exactly where we're going next, and it's going to be freaking awesome. We'll see.

So just to kind of wrap up here, do you guys have any final thoughts or things you'd like to share about the game, about its creation, its inspiration, about your results or aspirations or any of that just to kind of wrap up on? For me, I'm mostly thankful. I mean, the reception has been like, I mean, out of this world. It's really, really amazing to get the chance and be given by the public, you know, the means to keep on making games because there's certainly more. where that came from, you know, and all the team

is still working together and really happy to be, and, you know, so yeah, we just can't wait to, you know, announce more stuff and put out more content. And also maybe a quick shout out to our Discord channel if people want to join us. We have a good thing going on. We have

an ARG that kicked off alternate reality game that kicked off a few weeks ago, so people are unraveling mysteries and we're building up to future reveals, you know, through that. So, and we have, you know, community is really involved. and it's fun times. So maybe you can't say hi.

Yeah, that's a good idea. I'm very excited about, you know, seeing how Tieri gets new ideas for the new chapters and the new stuff that we want to make. And also looking back, remember when we saw each other at Bit Summit in Kyoto, we also had the chance to encounter the creators of the original Ninja Gaiden trilogy and the composer. And for us, and especially for Tiri, it was a very, very, good experience having to meet these guys and have them play our game and say that they were honored by the work that we did that was, you know, influenced by their work. And so

I think for us, it's a proof that, you know, we must be doing something right. Yeah. Yeah, that was Mr. Yoshizawa, right? Yeah. Yeah, he's like, he's really into games that have a good rhythm and a good flow. So, yeah, I could definitely see where he would play this and be like, oh yeah you guys got it because the messenger really does have that sort of yoshi zawa flow like not only to ninja guide in but also clanoa like it kind of has that same spirit so yeah that's awesome all right well guys uh i will wrap now but i wanted to say thank you for taking the time to uh sit down and record with me um do you guys want to besides your discord server let people know where they can find you online or where they could support your work um i don't know the address exactly

but I think it's Discord slash the Messenger. We have a vanity hurl, so I'm pretty sure that's it. Give me a second. We're also on Twitter, at Sabotage QC and Sabotage QC as well on Facebook, and at Messenger game as well. So if you guys want to follow the news, see the GIFs and all of that, we're pretty active. All right, awesome.

And of course, Retronauts, you know, you can find at Retronauts.com on iTunes and so on and so forth, and I'm Jeremy Parrish still, and you can find me on Twitter at GamesPite. So, yeah, be sure to check us all out because we're all cool, and we all like old games, just like you listening to this at home. All right, thanks again, guys, and good luck with whatever's next.

Thank you. Thank you for having us, and the Discord channel is Discord.g.g. The Messenger. We're going to be.