Developer Spotlight: Unspeakable Pixels from Batbarian

Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials is a snarky 2D Metroidvania platformer about a Barbarian and his magical pet bat. Since its release on October 15th it’s held a 96% positive user score on Steam with over 50 reviews. Thus by most accounts this is a comedic adventure worth checking out. The Metroidvania Review will be adding its own thoughts to the mix a little later this month, but first we thought we’d dive into getting to know the team behind its creation. Games like these don’t just appear out of thin air after all, and understanding the human element of the medium might help bring a deeper appreciation.

Every game is forged in a series of challenging trials. Not only does the developer have to consider game design, but also graphical assets, music, and in a comedy like Batbarian they have to think about narrative timing. Especially when you’re dealing with a (mostly) two-person team like with Unspeakable Pixels, the human beings that started the journey aren’t the same as the ones that watched the game get published.

“This is a game that took me 4 years to make” said Artist and Designer Frederic Tarabout in an email to the Metroidvania Review. According to Frederic it all started as part of his coding education, and then one thing led to another, snowballing into an entire project from there. “In fact,” said Frederic, “I started it from a tutorial to learn coding, but as it went I kept making my own version of it. The tutorial [helped you create a] sci-fi platformer and I would be like ‘hmm no, I’m gonna make a Conan-like character instead!’, slowly improvising the world from there.” In an r/games AMA post from October 23, Frederic explained that the tutorial really helped shape some of the ideas that made it into the final game. For instance, the titular bat in “Batbarian” was originally a light source demonstration as part of the coding example. Frederic said he thought it would be creative if that the light source was an animal that followed you around. “I didn’t even have a story yet!” Frederic said, “After that ideas started pouring in on what was unique about a light source that is your friend following you and what it entailed for gameplay.”

This improvisation of course allowed Frederic and his friend Fletcher to continue to explore their own tastes and inject their own creativity into the Project. In the r/games AMA post, Frederic said, “As a gamer I like variety of genre, I get tired of doing the same thing over and over (when I play Skyrim I use melee, archery, magic altogether in every combat haha) so when I make games I like to break genre tradition and mix other flavors. I love the exploration from metroidvanias but I also love the level design approach of games like Legend of Grimrock and such crawlers [were] a big influence on how to make secrets for Batbarian.”

This kind of passion for game design is exactly what sets the indie scene apart. The developers over at Unspeakable Pixels had the opportunity to make something that they would like, at a financial risk to themselves that their tastes would be too niche and the project would end up unprofitable. But for Frederic and his friend Fletcher, that risk was acceptable. “Because we wanted to make something new and unique, [yeah] there was a risk that there would be a clash of different audiences.” Fletcher posted in the subreddit AMA, “But it’s something we’ve always wanted from games like this ourselves so we figured there must be some other people who would resonate with it. The reception to the demo definitely helped validate that decision.”

In regards to the game’s focus on narrative, Frederic explained that it was in reaction to so many Metroidvania games neglecting the opportunity. “I am always bummed that metroidvanias create such big worlds but then don’t necessarily build powerful narratives around them so I really wanted to change that.” Frederic posted, “As for the humor, I just can’t really make anything that takes itself too seriously!” Humor of course is something that is especially subjective, and in the age of the internet writers can often rely on references to other works or to internet memes. The game’s composer assured in the AMA that the game is far more than shallow references when he said, “Just to add my own two cents: when [Frederic] told me it was supposed to be a ‘funny’ metroidvania, I was super nervous. Games that pride themselves on their humor are often sooo cringey and are already dated by the time they launch. It was such a relief when I actually played an early build and found out “oh shit, this is actually funny.” Not just referencing memes or being LMAO SO RANDOM. Genuine humor. No substitute!”

In his email to the Metroidvania Review, Frederic also described some of the challenges of creating a puzzle focused game. Frederic said, “The process to design the game was interesting yet difficult: there [aren’t many] puzzle based metroidvanias! So I had to figure out how level design would work around that. Backtracking is a key part of metroidvanias but backtracking through a puzzle again is the most boring thing that can happen!” Backtracking through puzzles is indeed a design conundrum that The Metroidvania Review has often criticized as being neglected when we’ve played games that have a puzzle focus. With Batbarian however it’s a subject that has gotten a lot of intense consideration as part of the development. To address the issue Frederic said, “I came up with a very early unlock of teleportation through any save point, checkpoints in game that make temporary saves after every puzzle and [I] often [placed] the more tricky puzzles in optional dead ends to unlock [a] power up.”

While the majority of the work was done by just Frederic and Fletcher, Unspeakable Pixels did not carry these challenges on the shoulders of just two people. In regards to the general game design, Frederic noted that playtesting played a very important role. Tutorializing game mechanics and including ways to use them as part of the monster and level design was paramount to his approach, but he also wanted it to make sense from a narrative perspective. “We realized people did not use the pungent fruits enough,” he said in the AMA, “So I wanted to add an early monster that was invincible until you used one. I wondered what kind of creature could resist a sword but not a powerful push from a magic bat, and came up with the slug monster with a big shell that only Pip can knock on their back.”

Besides playtesting, their choice of using the Unity game engine also provided a lot of resources when they needed help. The complexities of the engine was initially daunting according to their responses in the AMA, but it ended up simply being the best engine for porting Batbarian to multiple platforms, and the large Unity community ended up being a huge help. “When I ran into issues someone had probably [already] solved it or I could get help on it!” Frederic said.

Frederic and Fletcher also were not alone when it came to the game’s music. “Excellent Music” was one of the first things we noticed when we started seeing feedback on the game. Will Savino and Derris-Kharlan are to thank for that, and according to Will, getting things perfect for both the game and the composition was important to them. “[Frederic] had a complete vision for the project from the get-go, and so his feedback was always hyper-focused.” said Will in the AMA, “I never minded chucking out old ideas because I was certain that the new versions (with Fred’s feedback) would always end up superior. That’s the beauty of collaboration!”

We asked Frederic how he felt now that it’s all over, and he responded, “I still feel fairly similar to when we released the game, haha. We’re super happy the game’s out and with the reception of the game but in a way it doesn’t feel over to me.” He then reflected on what had actually changed over the development, “I’m definitely a changed person, I mean, you gotta learn to adapt when you spend all your savings making a passion project. I’m even more frugal than before and even though I’m an introvert it was still quite hard to work on my own until we finally were able to get office space. Going through this made me understand myself a bit more and also get confidence in skills I wasn’t sure I had.”

Fletcher noted that some of his biggest takeaways were related to a better understanding of how the game industry worked. Fletcher said, “After past few years of development I now have a much deeper understanding of the complications of localizing a game to several languages and porting to platforms like the Switch, and of planning and releasing updates with all those things in mind. And the development of this game has served as a good learning opportunity for navigating the industry in different ways. Fred and I have learned lessons both in the positive and the negative for things like how to market a game, pitch to publishers, and deal with legal details like contract language. Every project is a new big learning experience, looking forward to whatever comes next!”

For Frederic, part of that learning experience was really taking in the scope of what had to be done. “I started hoping to make this game in 1 year and all by myself and I have definitely learned that this was insane!” he said, “I always knew I had too ambitious ideas and that it would be crazy hard to see this to completion, but wearing so many hats taught me (hopefully) to be less perfectionist. You really have to be able to paint things with broad strokes to see what will work or not to not waste too much time because it’s often surprising how players will interact with your creations. Forced me to rethink a lot of Batbarian as we demoed the game in conventions.”

Demoing games perhaps had the biggest impact on Frederic, as he reflected on the best advice he could give to other independent developers, “If there’s one lesson to remember is that I think new people should play your game as early as possible and often through development. I learned so much from seeing where players of different age got stuck or not, what they’d see or ignore in the dark setting of the cave. I’ve probably made the game 100 times easier than the original design ( and it’s still a pretty big challenge) and I’m infinitely glad we decided to add assists for people who just wanted to experience the game on their terms. I’m a pretty competitive person who always wants challenges but making and sharing this game made me understand better how others enjoy and can experience video games.”

Being able to share the game of course can be the most rewarding part. “It’s been wonderful to see people praise the writing and humor!” Fredric said. Fletcher also expressed how great it was to have the confidence he had in the project reinforced by the player’s reactions, “It feels great to finally have the game out there and to see that the people who’ve played it generally find it to be as great as I genuinely think it is. Watching people play the game and figure out its ins and outs is a great experience and a big reinforcement that what we made actually came together in the way we were hoping it would.”

From what started as a simple coding tutorial to now four years later, Frederic and Fletcher are sitting before a budding fanbase already asking about what they plan on doing in the future. “There’s definitely a lot more we can do in the universe of Batbarian, and definitely a lot more exciting places to explore. Not sure when that will happen, that will definitely be affected by the game’s success and if we can raise funds for our next projects.” Frederic posted in the AMA. Frederic noted in an email that he feels like the work on Batbarian is still ongoing anyway, “Even though we can now watch people play the game on stream and see some log in 40 hours or more, we are still working on the game to improve designs based on player feedback or crushing minor bugs we had missed.” Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials has only started its journey, and in order for it to complete that journey every player that deserves to be touched by it needs to check it out. It truly is extra special when a game is born from a team that has such a great love for every aspect of its creation.

Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials is available now on the Nintendo Switch and Windows PC (Steam).