0130 Matt Bozon of WayForward for Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution

Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
Channel 3 is the future. Welcome crew to one of your. 3A

(00:30):
Channel 3 podcast, where today we are taking a one of our
developer friends and we're going to talk three games of
their choosing and go through some other odds and ends while
we're going through here. But today, without further ado,
I'm going to introduce Matt Boson, who is the creative
Director at Way Forward. And I I'll just say, you know,
like, like creative director's like it's a fun title, but like
you're just a step off of tyrannical overlord.

(00:52):
I mean, I think that's really, you got to find a good credit
like that, Matt. That's that's what you got to
do. That's right.
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah, I'm a creative director. Yeah.
I'm Matt Bozan. Hello.
Thank you for having me. This is super cool.
Excited to dig in this stuff. When I rolled credit on yards
rising, I was like, oh, I got totake a screenshot of that one.
That's one of those not not the first time he was credited as

(01:13):
such, but when you when you put the boss's name in this
tyrannical overlord, you really hope.
That Joe plans. You did that, Yeah, your series
to begin with too. So it's it's got to be OK,
right? No, I'm just creative director,
the CCO these days. I used to run publishing mostly.
Now I'm just directing Shante games 'cause that's what I like

(01:33):
to do the most. So doing a little bit of my
creative director job and then directing Shante games 'cause
that's my that's kind of like mypassion.
So I'm doing a little a little, always trying to do a little bit
of both. You you have an extensive resume
in that creative director position.
I'm, I'm just gonna run down, I'm gonna run down a list here
real quick just for oh, thank you.
Just if you don't mind that likethe mighty series.
Oh my gosh, you could River River City Girls has been

(01:55):
popular you've you've had Contracontribution like Contra 4
Operation Gallagher like the night creative director role.
Yeah Contra yes, the creative director on that one, but I was
the director of Contra 4. That's the Nintendo DS 1.
So that one's more more my handson baby.
So yeah, it goes back I I know you got do you have a list?

(02:16):
Is there just a we don't have? We don't have a list.
I have to I have to shout out. I was just going to shout out
Blood Stained only because I love that one, and then I have
to shout out Duck Tales Remastered because we, we olds
who appreciated that the first time around, really, really like
the update you guys made. So thank you for that.
Yeah, thanks. But of course, the oh, go ahead,
sorry, sorry are. You going to get into some

(02:37):
weird? How far back are you going to
go? I'm not I'm.
Not listen, I could go back to to Mickey back in the day, even
that that was in my childhood. I was like, I had that game.
Oh my gosh. That's on the on the Genesis.
I had that one. But yeah, we, we, we website,
we've got all 125 plus or whatever it is that way forward.
We got them all cataloged on there and ready to.
Get, Oh, is it really? Yeah, I, it's, it's a, we got a,

(02:59):
we keep talking about putting together a list because we got,
believe it or not, we got, I think we surpassed 300 games and
we don't know when it happened. And, and it's, and it's always
like, what do you call a game anyway?
Like is a, is is. We did like educational software
in the early days too, right? Like.
Oh, we did so much. We did.
We'd probably done, oh, I can't even guess many dozens before we

(03:23):
even got more traditional games going.
So it it goes, it goes way back.And then, yeah, I'm one of the
founding members. So like I'm kind of yeah, I got
all these a lot of credits, gamecredits, but there's ones that
it's like, yeah, creative director job, which completely
varies to like how involved I I am from either just like, hey,
you know, I'm just well wishing everybody and given, you know,

(03:46):
sharing any, any. Hardy.
Hardy but appropriate. Pat on the shoulder, Yeah.
Yeah, like how can I help? You know, usually I'm involved
with at least the starting up ofthe project, but the ones that
I'm more like directly hands on is obviously like a way shorter
list. So I'd, I'd probably have to get
through into some of that stuff.But yeah, like if you just, I

(04:06):
don't know, been doing it for about 30 years.
So probably directing a game or sometimes 2 every year,
depending on how they line up oroverlap or, you know, give or
take. So I don't know.
It's it's a bunch of video games.
But it's a, it's a list that like people will see you.
You have a thumbprint like you have a, a creative thumbprint of
that. The like cinematic auteur
theory, like, I don't know, you can see where your games are.
You can see where the the visual, you can see where the

(04:29):
style ends up. It's fun.
It's fun to see. I don't know if you're, you know
how much thought you put into that or not, but you can see
where your handprints. Are yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think a lot of it is when, you know, chasing after
inspirations and then also just a little bit of you get, you
know, I guess you get used to working in a particular style or
you develop a style and then it starts to kind of be comforting

(04:51):
to stay close to it. I suppose, you know, it starts
to carve out kind of a signaturestyle or you start using similar
gameplay philosophies in either the visuals or the, the way you
approach a game and then passingit on, 'cause at this point I, I
couldn't tell you. I've worked with a lot of, like
so many creative people, just awesome folks over the years.
I, I don't have any idea how many employees and, and

(05:15):
freelancers and partners and just talent we've worked with
over the years. It's been so long, you know, 30
plus years. It's so many people, you know,
so you get a chance to pass someof this on and then also kind of
get, you know, sharpened by others, which is really nice.
I don't know. It's just constantly growing
and, and sharing processes. Eventually, eventually kind of

(05:38):
adapting and, and, and I feel like you end up building a style
out of a combination of things I'm bringing and things I'm
learning from others. And yeah, it's, it's great.
It's been, it's been, it's, it'sbeen fun making all these games,
I guess over all the years I do.I do really enjoy it.
I, I said when we had, we had James Montania on last year for
yards rising and I, I, I thank you and I need to thank you too

(05:59):
for don't lose color because there's so many games that like
from the mid to late aughts, even until now, they're stuck in
the, the greens, the Grays, the blacks and the, the, the dark
Browns. Thank, thank.
I'm always appreciative when there's a little color palette
that's involved and, and thank you.
Yes, that's one of the things I got to say about the, you know,

(06:20):
way forward as a whole. But I, I, I think that's one of
the things you and I certainly saw with James some, some I, I,
I was joking with him about the same thing.
So I appreciate the color palette you guys bring.
That's awesome. Thanks.
Cuz yeah, I don't it's really funny.
I don't think about it too, too much when working on a game, but
yeah, whenever I see our games in on either, I don't know, on

(06:41):
the storefront or in you just randomly searching video game
stuff like man, our stuff is always really colorful and you
know, loud, I guess visually, but that's AI don't know.
That's I think that's one of thehallmarks of how we do things.
It's it'd be hard. It would be hard to come up with
a visual style that doesn't thatisn't really bright and
colorful. I'm not sure how other places do

(07:03):
it. Like what?
I know what you're talking about.
I see a lot of things where I'm like, oh, and.
I like some of those games, don't get me wrong.
I'm here on the full out series.Oh, that's it's greens and Grays
and blacks, huh? It's a little bit of Browns.
I love them. I I play, I probably play a lot
of the a lot of the games that you're talking about and I love
them. But yeah, it's funny.
But then when it comes time to actually work on stuff, I don't
tend to operate that way. It's usually almost right out of

(07:25):
the gate. What are the core colors of this
game going to be and how do we what are the rules for our
visuals, kind of how we going toapproach it?
So yeah, I'll actually do color swatches sometimes before a game
design. It's like, all right, here's
going to be here's going to be colors of the game in what
percentages these colors are going to appear on the screen.
And that might sound kind of weird, but you know what?

(07:49):
It comes from a place I. I guess we're just digging into
random stuff already 'cause thisis the way it goes, right?
Well, it's a great, it's a greattie in to Shante, 'cause this is
good. I I saved.
I saved the big dog from last. Oh, thanks.
Yeah. That, that, that was that was
you. You hit my transition point
perfectly for me. Pretty.
Good. Yeah, I mean, you know, listen,
you're, you're kind enough to come on, we're we're going to
talk in the course of your threegames about, you know, Shante

(08:10):
advance Risky's revolution. And, you know, first of all, I,
I have to call it up top here just so I, I don't forget.
I will mention it elsewhere too,but you know this will be out
before the physical pre-order window ends.
The game is out now on modern consoles.
It was out in April for the the gameboy advance.
I'll we'll come back to that later, but I do want to mention

(08:31):
up top you have until the 7th toget unlimited run games.com,
because I know a great many physical collectors who want to
make sure they've got the physical copy of the game.
So PC, Xbox, PlayStation 4 and five and switch.
It's there, you've got time, go do the pre-order so.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah.
I don't, I don't want to forget that, but yeah, this is as good
a time as any to jump in becauseyour, your three games are, are

(08:55):
exactly related to to Shante, Your your, you, your wife, your
creation here. And what I will jokingly say,
it's the most productive bar napkin I've ever heard of.
I, I don't know if it was, you know, the, the nature of the
exact conversation, but I don't think I've ever had any kind of
brainstorming session with my wife.
She's a, you know, she's a writer and an editor and does

(09:15):
medical writing. I can contribute nothing to the
medical pharmaceutical editorialfields, scientifically speaking.
So I can't help her at all. And that, that's that.
So I appreciate just that. Whatever that conversation was,
it worked out. But yeah, you kicked it off with
Shante. Sure.
OK, So, yeah. And so we're so we're talking
three games, so Shante the firstone.

(09:36):
Yeah, Yeah. I think we're going.
We'll go in chronological order here, right to the beginning.
And, and this is going to be a funny chronological order
because the new game, the one that is out that you, that you
just mentioned that you can pre-order is game #2 in the
series and only just released last week.
Yeah, the the the most recent, but the second.
Right, a 20 year old game came out last week for the first time

(10:00):
Yeah, that's a whole story. So I guess yeah, what these
three games make the most sense where sees revenge being the
third, because they kind of I think I think that they do the
best job of explaining or telling the story of like the
struggle of Shante and it it really does align very nicely to
the rise of indie gaming and kind of what that means.
So it this is this is a good I feel like this is a good place

(10:21):
to kind of kind of live in for just a for for the conversation.
We'll just kind of talk about yeah, Shante.
So Shante won the first one. So you just want me to talk
about it? Just explain it a little.
Yeah, great. Heck, I mean like it's it, like
you said, it's a pre indie. Like we're in the middle of like
a real like positively weird indie place.

(10:42):
You guys were around before that.
You guys were like, oh man. Before that though.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. We were back in the we were back
in the five inch floppy days. So just to give you like you go
way back, way, way back. Like how how old is way forward?
And you know, some of the games we worked on it as a as a group
predates what we even think of now as way forward.

(11:04):
Like we see way forward logo. There is a time when it was just
we were some people that just worked together without any kind
of a banner, you know. So yeah, if you go back far
enough, yeah, let's see. So Shante won.
So I guess the way that that came about, you were referring
to my wife Aaron and I have in conversations about like like

(11:27):
how Shante came about. I by the way, I always like it
when I hear her version of the story because it's definitely a
little, it's a little different.Like I think I've, I've kind of,
I don't know, I feel like my memory is not as sharp.
Like I'll give details that are a little blurry and then she'll
come in with this like clear moment and explain it.
So I want to caveat that it's always cool to hear her version

(11:47):
of it. But the, yeah, the way the way
that I kind of remember this going is we were.
So she and I met at Cal Arts. I have to kind of explain also a
little bit too, I guess my, my wife and I met at Cal Arts,
which is the IT was at the time that was the only animation
school in the country. So if you want to draw some
cartoons for your job, that's where you had to go.
So I just moved out to Southern California.

(12:09):
She's actually from here and I met her there in college.
And you know, so it's a small group.
It's it's like there's not a lotof character animators.
That's a fairly small program, you know, a couple, I don't want
to say a dozen, a few dozen people though.
So it's pretty, it's Pretty Little like the number of
students coming through each year.

(12:29):
There was like, you know, mostlyguys, couple, a couple of ladies
in there. And yeah, we're all being
trained to basically do pencil and paper animation.
And the goal was get into feature film, get into TV or
something like that. The the shows that had just just
to kind of give context, Who Framed Roger Rabbit had just
come out. Little Mermaid had just come

(12:49):
out. Beating the Beast was in
production. Adam was in production.
So all of our teachers. Yeah, exactly.
They just opened the the Floridastudio for Disney to start
working on the B movies, which was considered to be the ones
that were the fillers on opposite ears, which turned out
to be Lion King, which which ended up being a huge success.

(13:10):
But back in the back in the day,it was supposed to be like,
yeah, the big movies on the odd years on the the the coming out
of Florida movies on the other one.
This the reason that this kind of matters a bit is that our
teachers, because the way the Cal Arts is set up, it's like
teaching character animators. And it's basically a passing of
a torch kind of method of teaching where the people who

(13:30):
are making those movies would come in, your classes would
start a lot of them at like 7:00PM.
So they'd show up after work andthen they'd teach the classes.
You'd do the stuff. So like our animation, animation
one O 1 teacher for Aaron. And I was this awesome guy,
Neil, Neil Warner, who is the director of one of the directors
of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.

(13:50):
So that was his, he was the guy.He's like, oh, you, you know, he
comes in, he's like, OK, you've all seen what I do.
I make Ninja Turtle, whatever. Real funny guy, super proud.
Of it, yeah. He's he's amazing, basically.
Satisfied by this? Yes, yeah.
No, he, he was. He was so awesome.
We'll still talk to him to this day on occasion.
He's he's a lot of fun, but it was really like, all right,

(14:11):
here's how TV works deadlines, you know, you do the job and you
flip the pages and you draw the turtles or whatever.
And, and he kind of explains thewhole process.
We learned all of that. Then we'd have other people
coming in teaching the, the feature film side of it.
Here's how that works. So Long story short, everybody,
everybody that you're like coming out of school and
upperclassmen and stuff where these amazing people, you've
heard all of their names and animation.

(14:31):
I won't bore you with name drops.
You know them all. They, they were all making these
amazing things. And this is the people who are
like on their way out of Cal Arts as we were coming in and we
wanted to be just like them. You know, it's like, so every
cartoon that you know, that you're watching, this is these
people. And so it really start putting
pressure on on us as the, the, you know, in our first, second

(14:54):
year of school, which is actually when I stopped, Aaron
continued and graduated. I, I left and started working
with, with Volti. What would, I guess, become way
forward more formally after a couple years of that?
But there was this real thing where like it's you kind of have
to pitch a thing. Like you have to pitch a thing.
You got to make a TV show. People at school were pitching

(15:15):
like a I mean, I'll give a couple examples.
Craig McCracken was pitching Powerpuff Girls.
That took off and was a huge success.
One of the teachers was pitchingAnimaniacs that was and picky of
the brain. That was a huge success, right?
So everybody. Spielberg guy got involved
there. Yeah, exactly.
So everybody has a has a thing that they're pitching and

(15:35):
you're, you're kind of like, it kind of feels like you're
supposed to do it. You're not it's not a written
rule, but you're kind of expected to like look, either
get in the business and start, you know, animating on one of
these films or TV shows or pitchone of them and get new blood
into the, you know, into the machine, right?
That's gross sounding fresh blood into the industry.
What am I trying to say? Make it.

(15:56):
You got, you're good rolling, just rolling it rolling.
You're good contribute, contribute to this industry,
right. So it's like, OK, so this is
what was kind of happening. No, we didn't have games was not
a viable choice. You didn't go into video games
especially for. Animation.
I'm sure not for hand drawn animation.
This wasn't right. We were in.

(16:16):
We were still in what? Super Nintendo haven't launched
yet. So we're in.
Exactly. So most of the time it was like,
Oh well, the programmers make the sprites, you know, maybe
they're starting to be more artists involved.
But I know there, I don't know, I blur the line when I say
artists, programmers were the artists at that time.
But you were starting to get more as the as the tech was

(16:38):
advancing a little bit like kindof creeping into 16 bit.
You'd have more, I guess games would start to kind of explore
more ways to be, to have artistry in the games, like
right, Like not just pure gameplay, pure gameplay was
where it was at because that's it was all there was so
everything. Was based on you didn't have
that. You were dead because the game
was useless. Exactly.

(17:00):
So graphics were kind of secondary, but now they're
starting to become more important.
This is right at the time when we were starting to transition
into career. So just a couple of us were were
kind of like, hey, what about video games?
This seems kind of cool. It seems like you can get really
close to your audience and like entertain them directly.
And this this is where there were some choices that had to be

(17:20):
made about like where where to go and what to do.
Well, basically without getting like dragging it out like crazy,
which I guess I've already done.Erin got to a point where she's
like, I want to pitch a thing. I'm trying to figure out what I
want to pitch. I want she wanted to of all our
friend group. We had friends pitching TV shows
I was doing working on a game pitch, my roommate.

(17:42):
So we're we're working on a gamepitch.
We're all kind of like playing around with stuff.
And I think, gosh, had we done, I feel like we have started
working on, we must have been working on Mickey's Ultimate
Challenge for Super Nintendo by by now as a, as a freelance
thing, like just kind of helpingall of us working together,
helping make this game by all ofus.
I mean, like a group of about 3 or 4 people.

(18:03):
And, but this is where as she was trying to like kind of
figure it out. I'm like, well, you know, it's
just doing like prompts, like, well, you know, what would you
do? How would you, what would your
game, what would your game be about?
You know, and it, this is just kind of typical.
We just go for walks, talk aboutcreative stuff, talk about story
ideas, you know, that kind of thing.

(18:26):
And yeah, that's where she, that's where she kind of started
to have, I think the origins of these things 'cause she was
sketching. Like, what is this?
He's like, Oh, it's like a character that whips, whips with
her hair, like with her ponytail, like, oh, that's,
that's cool. My interpretation is oh, like,
because you have insanely long hair.
Her, her, her interpretation wasmore like, like as I'm learning
more about where her ideas came from, I'm starting to understand

(18:46):
a little bit better, more, more of where her influences were.
I think more more like stuff she'd see and like I dream of
Jeannie with her long hair and stuff but she was drawing like
it. Was the right timing for yeah,
Nick at night, especially your. Yeah, yeah, That was that was
starting to show up around that same time.
And so the, you know, she's got this character.
She's like, I want to do something that's got like, maybe

(19:07):
nonviolent. You know, we're starting to see
ultraviolence starting to also come into the.
Scene Doom has arrived on the scene and has made its.
Presence exactly. Yes, I would.
I would go, I would go to people's houses with fast enough
computers, like can I please play your doom?
For a while I was. Kind of couldn't play it on any
of our computers, but yeah. So that's, that's where so
Shante kind of came from a she'sgot an idea, she's coming up

(19:31):
with stuff, brainstorming, wanted to do something
nonviolent but cute. She wanted to do like a girl
character. Because also this is like really
important. There weren't female characters
generally. I mean, I know we know that they
exist now because we have a better idea of what was going on
in Japan or in other places. Like they existed, but in the US
we didn't really have. We didn't have that.

(19:52):
The game the game manual for Metroid.
I know it was a few years beforethis, but listed Samus is a he
and the manual soul. Like I thought I'm like, oh,
he's a cool robot football player looking guy.
He looks like a cool dude, right?
Yeah, it didn't. It was very secretive about it
and then. You had Duke Nukel?
Yeah. You're doing the spectrum, so
you get yeah. So anyway, around 1994 is when

(20:15):
sometime in 1994, summer fall, we're trying to figure out when
exactly. But somewhere around there she
created this character and and I've, I've actually done a bit
of a disservice couple times when I'm talking about like, oh,
creator of Chante. It's like Chante's the name of
the game. It's also the name of the
character, but she's the creatorof both.
Like it's the game, the game, the concepts of the game, The

(20:35):
the thing that became the series.
She created that. Handler character.
Yeah. So it's what's really nice is
that then, and I've been workingon my own stuff at that time,
but I found myself getting more drawn to what she was doing.
And so eventually we just started collaborating.
Like can I like, like, hey, can I, you know, she basically, can

(20:56):
I draw your character? Can I try drawing some of that
because it looks like a lot of fun.
So we started just doing this thing where for no kidding, for
like 6 years we just kept working on game design, make a
little demo, do do some screenshots, like just keep
trying to figure out could we dothis kind of stuff.
But at the same time, game, gamedevelopment is marching onwards,
like 2D is starting to become slightly left behind somewhat,

(21:19):
you know, things are moving intohigher resolutions and we're
like, well, where's that going to put platformers?
And it turns out nowhere. They're getting replaced by ray
casting engines and 3D games Basic.
CSA Playstations coming along and kicking the door down, CDs
making its presence known. Yeah.
Right. We're seeing, we're seeing cool,
cool PS1 stuff. You know, N64 starts to get

(21:40):
really popular. And granted, in talking the six
years that I'm referring to, Super Nintendo launched, had
this amazing heyday and then started to show signs of waning.
You know, this is all what we'retrying to get this game off the
ground. Shantego is going to be a Super
Nintendo game. That's what all the original
concepts were were for. They're all for Super Nintendo.
By the time we started getting what felt like any kind of
traction, Super Nintendo was notreally an option.

(22:03):
They're like, well, it's too expensive.
CDs are now the thing everybody wants to do.
They're cheaper. But along with that is like, and
they kind of don't want 2D, theywant 3D.
It's like the industry was experiencing like this sea
change, right? And we were effectively too late
for it. Which brings us to and.
And too early. We'll get to that though, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So we, so we and I, I feel like

(22:26):
this is also kind of like our, this is kind of like the
catalyst for our indie. I, I like how we would kind of
most identify as an indie developer because we're still a
way forward is an independent developer.
We're owned by, by Voldi way. Voldi way is just one person who
owns the company. It's not a public company.
This is him like this is, you know, even going back to the

(22:48):
beginning, this is him, you know, make like dedicating his
own, his own money, bootstrapping the company with
the budgets from one project to the next, like making it work
any way that he could. And so, yeah, our, so our, our
way of kind of, I, I feel like what ended up happening is as we

(23:09):
were trying to stick to what we wanted to build with this Shante
game as the industry is moving forward and there's an obvious
trend towards where everyone should be going.
This is when I I remember seeingthis pretty clearly when you.
I don't know, I'm getting into the game history a bit, but when
you started seeing, what was it?Mega Man XX123-ON Super Nintendo

(23:30):
Wii get to X4 on. And if that's if that's what I'm
thinking of, that's the one thatI think had just like a really
hard time actually releasing. Yeah, I'm.
Sure, that series started to take a hit, yes.
That's yeah. And it's, and I remember there
was a lot of pressure because wehad started getting closer to,
to establishing some, some contact with Capcom.
And this is how we ended up being able to ultimately pitch

(23:51):
Chante to them. And ultimately they became the
actual publisher of the of chante #1 which is awesome.
But in the meantime, it seemed as though like 2D was starting
to be The Dirty word. Like you didn't want like I'm
like, man, if Capcom is having struggles getting Mega Man, like
they're like the the the kings of 2D at the at that time.

(24:12):
Right. They, they still do.
I to be clear and for just to put an editorial in here, I
would like to have a talk with him about please bring more 2D
Mega Man into the world in 2025.But that's a conversation for
another day. But yeah, well, and, and, and my
gosh, the but even seeing even way back then, seeing struggles
with places that were like, OK, they really seem like they want
to do 2D, but they seem to not be able to either because sales

(24:36):
numbers, financial partners saying, look, the math doesn't
work out or whatever. We had all of that stuff going
against us. And then the the other thing
that was the constantly kept shutting us down was OK, like we
come close to a deal. This is still we're talking for
Shante, the original, which at this point is starting to not
really be Super Nintendo anymoreand is looking for a home.

(24:56):
It's like, well, what's it gonnabe now?
It it can't be that Game Boy Color to set the stage there.
Game Boy Color was not announcedyet, so Game Boy Black and white
was there. Game Boy was dead.
Pokémon haven't come out at at this particular time and and
revived Game Boy. Game Boy was also a dead
platform. You had like one or two games
coming out at a time and it was mostly just a trickle.

(25:19):
So this is right in this era when when we kind of finally got
our footing, but the resistance we were getting was it was
always like, well, who are the male players going to play as?
They can't play as Shante 'causeshe's a girl.
So if you can make her be Player2, but she can't be Player 1.
So you can have, it's like a youcan, you can have and, and this

(25:39):
isn't like one nasty publisher. This was industry wide.
Universal the same one for movie.
You talking about movies? So it's the same they're I was
just listening to something about the the Bring It on
cheerleader movie. They were having all the same
conversations about movies. So like, no, you can't have.
Oh, that's wild. Girls don't go to.
Movies girls date women don't goto movies.
That's right. So and it it.
Was like, but then, you know, wemake a case for it.

(26:00):
And they're like, but this is anaction game.
And we're like, yeah, we know. And they're like, but you got
your demographic all screwed up,like everything about this game,
they, we just could not get traction on it.
And it was, and we weren't goingto compromise either, which was
like kind of being a young, you know, the young person, stubborn
thing, 'cause we were, you know,in our what, 20s, early 20s?

(26:21):
It's just, you know, you don't want to budget.
I have a creative vision. You know, you're fresh out of
school and you're like, I'm doing it.
I'm doing it my way. Well, as it turns out, that
caused massive delays, but ultimately paid off because when
we finally did, you know, Game Boy Color, we were trying to we
were like, you know what, let's just do something we want to do.
We started talking about Game Boy black and white with
Nintendo like, hey, no one's making games for this.

(26:42):
What if we made a game for we weren't even talking about
Shante, just Game Boy's cool. Could we get development kits?
And as we pursued this, they're.I'm realizing I need to.
Keep it a little a little shorter because I'll just go all
off on the one game, right? But as we're getting closer to
Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Nintendo realizing we're have an
interest in this, they're like, well, you know, we have this new
thing, then we're gonna, we're gonna disclose you on it.

(27:05):
And so they're they they let us in on Game Boy Color.
We're like, oh, this, this is cool.
So we made a game which was extreme sports for me.
That was like, I feel like the first actual game game that I
worked on it way forward up before that.
It was like kid cd-roms, anything to paint.
You had a lot of. Lacing stuff before that so I'm
gonna say that was where you guys like it did your own thing
finally right like yeah and one of.

(27:26):
The Yeah, we did those parody projects.
Which were those? So that the window the the
windows micro. Shaft the wind blows and and and
the the X fools and yeah star warped yeah, we did those
ridiculous all these crazy gameslike kind of over there kids,
trust me. You had to be there at the time.
Oh man, there was. One the one time we got signed

(27:48):
on. Oh my gosh.
What was it? It was for the Lost in Space
movie. Do you remember the Lost in
Space movie? Oh yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the the the William Hurt and all that.
Yes, Yeah, you got, you got. It we we got signed, we got
signed on on for a project called Lost in Space
Entertainment Utility. I'm like, that's the weirdest.

(28:08):
What's up with this weird name? And they're like, well, we don't
have the license for the game, so we have to, it has to be
something else. I'm like, so entertainment
utility video game. So but but what's what's so nuts
is the business back then was they would, you know, they would
sell boxes to retailers like empty boxes and just say, OK,
here's the here's the here's thething, here's the property.

(28:30):
It's a license. Sure, I'll take Lost in Space or
Here's What's Coming home. Babe.
The pig or. Whatever, you know, it's like,
hey, we're doing a here's a here's a video game.
We pre sold X number of empty boxes into Walmarts and Best
Buys and everywhere else GameStop actually, no software,
etcetera and babbages. Sorry, yes, yes.
All the various electronics boutiques of the world and all
that. Yes, yeah, the proper names.

(28:52):
Back then and then our job as the developer was don't blow the
budget and make sure a game was done on time because that box is
shipping whether there's something in it or not.
And that was our job. So sometimes the box art was
already made and they're like, OK, so we need a game that can
go in this box. And it's a picture of like, you
know, lost in space. Something looks they're in a
spaceship and yeah, the friends guy can't whatever.

(29:12):
The friends guy name is he was probably the one on the cover.
I'm sure. Yeah, right.
Like oh Dang, OK, I gotta. Cope with something.
So that was kind of like the pressure cooker.
We were sort of, you know, that's that's how we were,
that's how we got something. Work.
Yeah. Get a game, get a.
Game in there. Yeah, so.
The Game Boy Color one chante was it wasn't originally going
to be Game Boy Color, but once we had the first game under our

(29:33):
belt and we're very much in this, we can we can do games as
as a, you know, as a worker hire.
We're good at it. We shout out to Extreme.
Sports value before we get too far, 'cause that yeah, there was
a there was a good, good port onthe switch a couple years ago.
So yeah, you can still get. It it's, I think it's on.
I think you can get it on the E shop right now.
Yeah. It's, it's on the E shop.
It's on the switch, yeah. Yeah, the yeah on the switch.

(29:56):
Exactly. Thank you.
Yeah, that was that was mostly me and Jimmy Huey, the
programmer made that whole game.And then when we got to Shante,
it was me and Jimmy and Aaron. So most of the mostly the three
of us, I'd say mostly the three of us 'cause occasionally we get
some help from somebody else just to help finish off it.
That's the primary. That's the.
Primary authors, yeah, but mostly.
The three of us, so we ended up working on that game.

(30:18):
It took about, well, it took forthe entire lifespan of Game Boy
Color to get that game done, butthat's finally when it was
great. We had Voldee way, the owner
John Beck was the CEO. They're like, hey, we if you can
keep the lights on by subsidizing with other games and
you you guys can form a little team and keep making the other
stuff like Sabrina 1 and 2, Wendy the witch, like Wendy

(30:40):
every witch way we did WWF or what?
What is it? Betrayal.
Yeah. What are some of the I'm?
Trying some of the other ones, but anyway, we kind of keep the
lights on doing those games, work on Shante and as we're
working on Shante, every cool feature we would come up with
for Shante, we would add into the current games and then
release those while we're continuing to work.

(31:02):
So our games as they came out, we're kind of getting more and
more visually impressive for Game Boy Color because of all
the kind of I guess R&D and and development going on in the
background on the Shante game. So by the time we got to the
Shante game, we're like, this isgoing to, you know, blow
people's socks off when we release.
It's gonna be so cool, right? That's when we got the, the this

(31:23):
is, this is kind of like the, oh, and then this happened is we
had the like, I'd say one of thebest days we've ever had is
after an E3, which I oh, I miss E3.
I'd have been walking around with that, with that Game Boy
Color in my hand, like showing it to anybody who would look at
it like just trying again, right?
It's like, all right, like got to get someone to, to help
publish this thing. Because by the way, there's no,
I know, I know for anyone listening who's like not old

(31:44):
enough to remember this, like you could not publish a video
game. There was no digital
distribution. You had to like, think like you
had to hire a place who had a manufacturing facility or links
to one who owned a fleet of trucks that could drive these
boxes all across the country andstick them into brick and mortar
stores that were not cheap to produce either.
This was not. No, they cost a lot.

(32:06):
Of money. So for every game, you know, if
you're lucky, they're making like man, maybe 4 bucks.
I in some cases, maybe they can make $8 a copy for like maybe a
$30 game. But it came down to how you made
the game. Did you use big expensive
battery storage and EPROM? Did you make a tiny game that
fits on a tiny cheap, the cheapest version of the chip?

(32:28):
If you made your game too big you just cut the profit in half
for the company people can just look into.
The like Nintendo Switch 2 stories right now about how all
that and you don't have to comment on that.
I'm just saying like it's still happening today this way, just
so people are aware, like that'swhere you see these game key
card unlocks and things like that.
Like just look up that and you'll like it.
It has not changed in 25 years. True.

(32:49):
If you look at. A I'm not gonna say that lists
of ROMs exist because they probably don't.
How would I even know? But if they did, If they were
actually speaking, yeah. If in in.
The name of education and science.
If you were to look at a list and you could see how big games
were in their in their final form, you'll see a whole bunch
of them that have these very specific cut offs of Oh, they're

(33:11):
exactly the like so many games are exactly this big and then so
many other games are exactly this big And then another group
is exactly this big. These were the cut off points
for the chip manufacturers to make their like this.
All the publishers made their margins and how they made money.
So when you're going in and thisis this is basically me
explaining the end of the Shantething.
When you go in with a game that is the most expensive chip with

(33:31):
the most expensive battery starring a female character,
sorry, in the day that's, you know, in in 2002, that was kind
of the you know. We were out on a.
Limb and and on a new intellectual.
Property, which is yeah, didn't exist elsewhere.
Right, We're going to put in an action game with the girl lead
character on a box in Toys-R-Us,which was perceived to be on the

(33:54):
boy Isle. You know, this is kind of the
way they they would frame all this stuff.
It was in in the end it didn't. And well, one other part is and
Capcom helping us out. So Capcom helping us out was the
saving grace. They did amazing job of getting
that game actually into stores. But part of the way they did it
was they they kept support for the platform, which had a

(34:15):
massive install base. But I think their approach was,
hey, we're gonna hold this game till Game Boy Advance comes out.
Then when everyone moves on to Game Boy Advance, the early
adopters, then there will be this amazing game.
And it turns out they've been doing this for for years.
They're really good at supporting large installed base
consoles. Even when people have moved on,
they'll put these incredible games out on older platforms.

(34:35):
You see that with, Like, what was it?
What was Demon's Crest on NES? Gargoyles Quest 2.
Gargoyles Quest, Yeah. Yeah, the game.
The Game Boy, Gargoyles quest, The incredible game, or.
Yeah, or Mega Man 6 coming out on NES even after there was
already, you know, stuff moving on on Super Nintendo.
You got X over there, 6 coming over here.
So they were doing that method. So for us, what that meant was

(34:56):
Game Boy Advance is already out.Shante comes out kind of a odd
like, you know, 6-8 months later, forgot how long it was
after Game Boy Advance was out. And so it reviewed amazingly.
People who discovered it loved it.
People who didn't buy it, I can't blame them.

(35:17):
It probably looked a little bit odd to even show up at all.
But this is what led to it's cult, it's cult following.
It's like it was very well received, great, great coverage
and Nintendo Power and stuff like that.
But generally speaking, it was what would you call it?
Like I, I became a cult classic.Well, yeah, like you said.
Why don't you say? It's it's a cult game.
Like, OK, the sales weren't likeBlockbuster, but like, no,

(35:38):
people knew it was here. It was a good game and word of
mouth kept it going. And like, people.
Yeah. People.
Yeah. Exactly.
So yeah. Then So what we tried.
To do after that, which I guess is my segue into game #2 is.
We had already. Been working on Shante advance
when we were done with as soon as we were done with Shante one,
we kind of just I guess naively assumed that it would just do

(35:59):
great because it was so cool. Well, I guess super cool
everyone will like it, right. So we went straight into Gameboy
advance. So we had our we started
development in 2000 with our, with our, that tail end of 2000
starting to build up. OK, how are we going to
transition our our whole, our whole everything we're doing on
Gameboy Color? We're going to build out tech on
Gameboy Advance. New programmer Michael Straggy

(36:22):
came in. He's the the booger man guy.
Yeah, but like he's done a bunchof other games, but I know every
year cult games that. Like some of us remember the
pick and flick adventure. Yeah, exactly.
I know, I know that. Everyone will probably go, oh
OK, that's the connection to Mike Straggy.
But amazing, super talented guy.He built our tech and he was
lead programmer on, gosh, most Ithink of our Game Boy Advance

(36:44):
games and then supported them also all the way through that
whole life cycle of Game Boy Advance for us.
But we made we made this game next.
Well, once Shante won, sales were out there and it was proven
to be kind of a dud. I mean, beloved, but not a good
seller is I guess what I'm saying.
This Shante Advance became a really hard sell.

(37:05):
They're like, well, can you share sales data from the
previous game? Yeah, there was.
They didn't do great. It's like what would.
You like the new one, We promiseit's bigger and more expensive.
It was not it was it it wasn't agood sales pitch.
So we but at this point, we had already I mean, we had
developed, we just kept we were like, oh, you know, we never

(37:26):
never say die, right? Goonies, Goonies never say die.
We kept working on this thing and figured like, hey, just like
the first time around, if we just, you know, put our minds to
it, we could get it to happen. Yeah.
Keep it. Keep in the background.
Keep. Kind of.
Tinkering and and working there.We're doing the other stuff.
Yeah, we're we're picking up theother things.
The Scorpion King Game Boy Advance game.
We did Godzilla domination. We did some Barbie games.

(37:47):
We did the SpongeBob the Movie game with David Hasselhoff's leg
hair. That level that you had to run
through. We did all we did.
We did like numerous lights, camera, pants, what was a
creature from the Krusty Krab orwhatever.
We did all these bunch of SpongeBob.
There was a time. When you could.
Go to Toys-R-Us and it was like the way forward aisle was the

(38:08):
Game Boy aisle and Game Boy Advance aisle because we had so
many license games all the whiletrying to work on this one.
But eventually we're like, man, the only way to get this game to
work is to squeeze it down to beon one of these budget carts
that you can put on an end cap at a grocery store for 10 bucks.
That's the only way to make the financials work for any of the
partners and partners out there.The publishing partners were

(38:30):
awesome. They were giving us info,
sharing their stories. They're like, we love your game.
We'd love to publish, but we, weknow it, the financials, the,
the, the money doesn't work. We can't make it work.
They're like, can you make this game somehow unambitious and
tiny and somehow preserve what'sgood about it?
We're like, I, I don't think we,we just got to an impasse.
We're like, we don't think we can.
We'd have to, we'd have to gut it.

(38:51):
It wouldn't. It would be a shadow of even the
first game cause 'cause like you're doing.
Stuff in the background like you're, you're, you're swapping
level of like there's stuff happening in this thing.
There was no. Yeah, there was no way.
It was also we're really trying to, you know, we're seeing Metal
Slug and going, man, we should do animation.
I bet we could do as many framesas Metal Slug or Biogeo Pocket.

(39:12):
Yeah, it's a a. Well powered Japanese company
that yeah, right. That yeah, we're seeing stuff
like. SNK versus Capcom matches the
Millennium on Game Boy Pocket was blowing our minds.
We're like, this is amazing. We got to do, you know, this is
going back. I'm I'm kind of overlapping
timelines a little bit, but these things were inspiring us
to try to do bigger and better in terms of animation.

(39:33):
And it was so hard to let go of the levels of ambition we wanted
in. In the end, there was there was
no way to do it. We had to actually just say,
this isn't going to work out. And we actually cancelled, like
collectively we decided we can'tgo on.
We cancelled Chante Advance, thesequel to the first Chante, and
put it away and didn't work on it anymore.

(39:55):
It was horrible feeling. Yeah.
You wondered what happens. If you if you take this crazy
rear game tape at a yard sale with a rare unpublished and
complete one of kind prototype athing that sat unfinished on
some dudes hard drive for 22 years is that yeah, that is
exactly. Thank you.
Dialogue in the game. Felt oddly specific.
I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

(40:16):
I don't know was I was. It was I going through.
Some kind of healing process, I think while while writing that
Well, but but you guys, you guysdid some stuff in.
Between, I just had to, I had toget that in there that I was
like, I can't, I can't let that slide.
I had to bring up the the Wolfman.
That's awesome. Yeah, you're vapor Werewolf.
It, it's you're, you're, you're,I mean, it's spot on It what

(40:37):
happens there is so Shante and Vance, we, we had done just to
keep it short, 50% of the work. And as games are developed, it's
not the first 50% of the game inorder.
It's not like the first 3 worldsand then it just stops.
It's like 50% of the framework, the character mobility, the
transformations, how all the systems work.

(40:58):
All of her magic was done. Her full animation said all this
stuff was done and we had to just throw in the towel.
It was the, it was the saddest thing ever, and so we put it
away. I have to ask one question.
At the towel point. Well, you guys get it.
I I've I've been I've been playing as I unfortunately did
not have enough time over the weekend due to some family
business. But like, did you make the game

(41:19):
a little bit like more forgiving?
I don't want to say easier, but it it felt a lot more forgiving
than Shante. It's got yeah, the Shante 1.
Oh yeah, for sure. It was our SO even back in 2003
and 2000. Well, heck, I could say 2000
through 2004 is probably when weworked on it with pockets of
concentrated time. Also, by the way, how are you
for time? I've been so long and Ashanti

(41:41):
won. I'm as good as you are.
I, I listen your time, your timeis the bigger concern than mine.
I'm intrigued by all of this so I I just want to ruin your your.
Show. I'm sure you have a format
that's like when does he stop talking?
No, you're good. I am intrigued.
Please carry on. I I you you've answered somebody
like is there some questions? I have them just like and like.

(42:01):
Is that? No, you're probably.
You're probably helping me work through some things.
Is the again, just judging by some of the.
Comments in the game, I think you've been working through them
yourself just fine, but. Yeah, yeah.
Thank you. So.
But you, you don't. You don't.
Fully shelf this thing though, because you guys break it out
while you're you're bringing Shante back again though, like

(42:23):
this. This thing's kind of hanging out
there. You guys did like live streams
with us though, didn't you? This game, yeah, we pulled it
out of. Mothballs one time during the
during the Kickstarter for Half Cheating Hero.
So Pirate's Curse wasn't out yetHalf Genie hero was yeah, it was
Kickstarter. It was like last day of
Kickstarter. We're doing kind of like a big
push marathon to try to close out like as get the funding to,

(42:46):
you know, it's like, OK, gotta try to really ride the the wave
of excitement right up towards the end there because the more
budget we'd have you know, the better game we can make for that
half Genie hero game. So yeah, and we pulled that
thing out that's the only time I've actually ever played that
thing. It had been seen on IGN.
There was videos on IGN that like like original, original IGN

(43:09):
crew, like Craig Harris played it and reviewed it or previewed
it Shante Advance. But other than that it was there
were there were sales pitch sheets that I would pass around
at E3. Some some info got spread around
based on that. There's an upsell screen that
pictures of it are floating around, which is mostly true,
but depending on whatever meeting I was going into, I was

(43:31):
probably putting a cell screen on there.
Yeah, you want to, you want to focus on the whatever.
That publishers like brand was at the time you emphasize the
the this part or that part all all this also like builds up
your cult that people are like trying to piece this together
like they're Indiana Jones, you know research in the Middle Ages
or something. It's only helping effectively

(43:53):
the long the long games that you're you're able to kind of
suffer through it. But that's that's true, Yeah, a
lot of. The stuff too, that's funny is
it was pretty common place to put in a bunch of stuff knowing
that whoever signs signs this game, they're going to make
cuts. So I'm like, OK, I'm always
going to put in a few things. So when they say they got to cut
a couple of things, I'm like, yeah, OK, I understand.
Standard negotiation tactic, yes.

(44:14):
Right. So it's like, OK, put in.
Some stuff that I know is going to be like, oh, you got you got
rid of get rid of these several things.
I'm like, all right, motion captured Horse.
Gone. Got it.
No problem, guys. Right.
We're not going to do the horse.That's fine.
Yes, exactly. So yeah.
Where you I mean you, you, you got me.
So the oh man, I'm trying to call you out here.
I'm just saying it's just no, no.

(44:36):
It's so sorry it's. It's what's so.
Weird is OK, So you're asking about is it easier?
So it was going to be far more like like, I guess learn as many
lessons as possible from being barely having made a lot of
games. Like we had made so many
educational products at that time.
I don't know. We probably have like 30 video

(44:56):
games under our belt by the timeShante One came about.
Yeah, I'd even bring up like theLeapfrog with somewhere.
The the leap pad leapfrog stuff's in here somewhere.
Probably. Mostly, they're not action
games. Right, so mostly they're yeah,
click adventures or or you know,that's.
They called them. Entertainment products so we're
still life's little lessons withberenstain bears how to.

(45:17):
Get along with your fellow bear like that's.
Oh yeah, exactly. That's one of them.
That's. Again, just for context, not not
metroidvania, you know, again, I'm not I'm not disrespecting
Chante. Won't I say like no, I had I had
to I had to play that one a little more cautiously.
I felt, you know, I could play alittle loose, little looser with
Risky's revolution, like, oh, I can get hearts back in this
game. We're good.

(45:37):
I'm I'm I can I can heal more easily in this game.
I'm not going to die is awesome.It's it's.
Brutally difficult. It's from the that era where the
longer your play time was or the, I don't know, I think hard
games were kind of a sign of value back then.
It was like, well, you're quarter.
Sucker. The.
Quarter sucker idea of like the ghosts and goblins carried over

(45:58):
into games still, even when theyweren't trying to suck your
quarters right. It's like you're.
Like the game isn't your host, your game, The game is your
opponent. It's it's someone could beat
this game, but probably not you.Please, please have fun trying
to beat it. Right.
That was kind of the way a lot of design philosophy seemed like
it was back then. It's like, I know all about it.

(46:19):
Yeah, yeah, somebody. I know, yeah, exactly.
I know somebody. I know somebody who beat it.
It's like, what? Are you serious?
Like, how'd they do it? I don't know.
Value was measured in in very different ways then.
So I guess it felt appropriate at the time.
But I look back at that, it's like it's so hard.
So Risky's Revenge anyway, was going to be a bit more
streamlined in terms of UI, how things work, you know, not

(46:40):
falling into bottomless pits. We have the benefit of reading a
lot of reviews and where people were kind of having issues with
it. It's like these, all these
falling in bottomless pits, you know, pits off screen, all this
kind of stuff like, Oh yeah, of course, duh, I'm good.
Yeah, right, 'cause you learn. You know, we're still learning
how to make a better game at this time.
So this game in 2000 I was gonnacall 2003 was benefiting from

(47:03):
all of those lessons. So it was, I think, a far
smoother, cleaner experience than Shantae One was.
But it didn't have a full complete, fully realized game
design either. It was a lot of demoing
sections, places that were like,well, we'll figure out how this
works later. You know, it had its main core
concept, which is switching between a front yard and
backyard. And I guess I'm, I'm, I'm

(47:25):
effectively completely talking about game #2 now.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I mean, we segued. You're good.
Risky's revolution. Yeah.
Yeah, sort of makes sense. In a weird way to to.
Take it to that point and. Then and then talk about game #3
and then circle back and we'll swing back and we.
Will swing back. This tail is not finished 'cause
it's so. It's so weird.
But you're following, you're following the generations.

(47:46):
Of Nintendo too 'cause now like OK so you went from the Game Boy
Color to the the Game Boy Advance with a bookmark and and
now it's on to the DS and like no we're gonna directly release
stuff now yeah right so now we're.
Basically, Chante is Chante advance is cancelled and has
been cancelled. So six years developing Shante
one actually six years of pre production if you want to look

(48:07):
at it that way. Two years of development Shante
1 to get us to the to the year, the year 2002, then 2002 through
2004 working on Shante advance cancel it right.
Then you get to Nintendo DS and you get all the way to.
We're not at Nintendo DSi. We're just yet, but we're
already thinking do we? We've made little demos here and

(48:28):
there trying to figure out can we bring Shante back?
Because there's still kind of that icky feeling of it's the
game of advance. Whenever happened, it seemed
like there could be a sequel. It feels like it could somehow
come back, but it's been now so long.
But this is also getting the point where this is where
collectors kind of are. I, I feel like are are a big

(48:49):
help because people start remembering that, like people
are discovering the game, the old game, finding that it's good
and liking it, trying to buy copies, seeing that the value is
going up. And now Shante starts having
value again. And it's like, wait a minute
and, and there starts to be moreand more of a sense of, hey,
would we actually ever bring that back?
Maybe there's a market for this now.
OK, so this brings us right to digital distribution, which is

(49:12):
I, I guess I want to say this islike the next, this is almost
like the, the step we needed as an, as an indie because we
shifted. This is when I, when I took on
the publishing role at Way forward, I did that for about 10
years was head of publishing. It was OK.
I've been doing most of the leading the handheld department
as it was kind of its own thing like way forward had the bigger,

(49:33):
the bigger, the bigger the the greater way forward.
Yeah, that that 2000s. Was was heavy on, I mean like,
you know, there was some Wii andstuff like that, but the the
handheld was the yeah. So I was basically.
Running the handheld stuff and once it was looking like it's
going to transition out of Gameboy Advance into Nintendo
DS, we're starting to, we're starting to have more teams
working in tandem, less of a united design philosophy because

(49:57):
some of our games were places we're starting.
I guess I want to say it was split focus.
It was some places really wanted3D polygonal games on DS.
Some wanted hey do your shante thing or keep doing your your
cool 2D stuff in pixels. That would be like Contra 4.
There are even licenses you guysdid the 2D and like other

(50:20):
companies did the 3D for like a licensed thing like you guys,
you guys have the TD to the 2D locked down.
So it was like people were getting it like no, the T the 2D
works do what plays well there was.
Also, this thing going on in themarket where they wanted to make
sure that there was, in most cases there was like this, you'd
hear the Nintendo 3 prong thing.It was like, well, we want a
Nintendo DS game, but we don't want it to be the Game Boy

(50:42):
Advance game. We want those to be separate
games. So make your who knows what it
was? Was it like I?
I have no idea. Probably a star.
Wars the screen. Count right, Right.
Exactly. And that's when people started
getting cheap, right? They're like, well, we can make
the same game and deploy it twice as long as that
touchscreen does something. What could it do?
I don't have no idea. Stick a map on there.

(51:02):
Right. It's amazing.
You. Yeah.
Right, so. You start you, we're in that era
now, but once we could, we started with with We Wear doing
lit for We Wear, which was our first digital distribution game.
We're like, hey, this is kind ofa big deal.
We can call our own shots now. So now we have a way to

(51:23):
distribute our games. We just can't fund them.
But if we could, there's no morebarrier anymore, right?
So then it starts to become, well, how?
How much can we, how much can westart to support our own, our
own original it? Can we formally be our own?
Finance publisher now, yeah, right.
So that's that's what was. Motivating me to to take on the

(51:44):
the publishing role and be like,OK, let's start let's we'll
release games we'll publishing them them ourselves.
We won't have to be paying for the, the brick and mortar
stores. No one basically no one can tell
us no, it's like, hey, we want to put a game out there There's
no aisle. There's no more perception.
Like when I say aisle, I mean there's no more, hey, that that
girl character can't be on that that boy's aisle or whatever.

(52:07):
Like all of that stuff. Just sort of like the old
marketing techniques are gone. Right, marketing and.
Nintendo was awesome. They were, they were giving us,
I feel like they weren't starting to really roll out red
carpet for us. Be like, hey, if you guys make a
game for our thing, we'll we'll get you support like like make
sure you guys can have dev kits and whatever.
So they were the second time youguys are lining?

(52:28):
Up perfectly with them wanting to move into a new market
effectively, I think that. Helped too 'cause we were also
very helpful with launch on Nintendo DS, 'cause we were
there at launch. So we were typically at launch
for Nintendo with something new we wear or I'm sorry, even even
if you go ahead to Wii U when they launched the E shop, we

(52:49):
were there. I think opening night we were, I
was in line to purchase my Wii Uas mighty Switch force was going
through lot check. We were we were trying to I'm
like when I get home and plug this thing in, I I'm going on
the E shop. The game's there, but I know it
didn't pass. It's still in submission and I'm
like, I'm gonna be home in 15 minutes plugging this.

(53:10):
It made it the the but at that moment I'm like, I have no idea
anyway. So all all I'm getting at there
is you're just agreeing with you.
Yes, totally. No one's, no one's going to.
Stop you now and Nintendo's giving you the avenue more than
anything. I mean I'm sure there were
others that that didn't have like the the carte blanche
because again shovel werewolf will tell you that like you know

(53:33):
they also wanted to avoid garbage that would ultimately
get out on the the switch and steam and all that is but that
is true. They were still.
Doing the extremely curated, notnot anybody can release a game.
You had to kind of have been, you know, I just want to see
grandfathered in if you were so so we were.
There are two wolves inside of Matt.
Boson one, there's Vapor Werewolf and there's yeah, we're

(53:54):
just full, full of them. I got, I got puns for days.
So we got that game at at that. I actually designed that Risky's
Revenge. We're not talking about game #3
the 2010 Risky Revenge I designed.
I'm not transitioning well today.
You're thank you for taking careof that.
I'm all I'm. All over, I'm all over.
Anyone's keeping up. You're all of it.
You're gonna. Need a DRY?

(54:14):
Board for this, but yeah, just to reset now.
OK, game one. Well, well loved.
But it released on game. Boy color at the end of the end
of the life cycle, but yeah, 2002.
Game #2 Shante advance put on indefinite hold, or cancelled,

(54:36):
you could say, in 2004 into a filing cabinet, but we'll be
coming. Back later.
Yeah, Shante is now. Asleep and has faded from the
world, right? And now, now we're at Nintendo
DSi. So where we're at the Nintendo
DSi conference, which is where they're like showing us what the
thing can do, demoing it for everybody at at Nintendo was

(54:58):
does the thing, you know, they do that for developers to hold a
conference, show everybody the the specs and all that kind of
stuff. I'm there taking copious notes,
right writing down stuff and going, oh man, I can actually
pull some of the old ideas and turn it into episodes.
And because they're like talkingabout, well, you can only
download this much. Your game has to fit in this
much space. So it's not like a full

(55:19):
cartridge. It's limited by a variety of
factors. I'm like, OK, so I can make a
game that's more powerful, like a 2D pixel game more powerful
than what DS can even do, but I can't store as big of a game as
what DS can store because these are downloads.
This is like a whole new era of Nintendo.
It's it's weird, right. So I'm like, all right, episodes

(55:42):
we'll do maybe we do episodes. So I come back from that, that
conference with this plan Shanteand, and inspired by Kid Icarus.
I'm like, we'll do Shante, overworld, underworld, sky
world. We'll do that funny thing, kind
of like what they did with Kid Icarus with its three worlds.
I'm like, this would be a lot offun.
So it'll it'll start with an overworld adventure.

(56:04):
Something crazy is going to happen.
You're end up trapped in like the underworld and then that'll
be episode 2. And then in the third one,
everything gets like airborne. The whole world is like, I don't
know, tied to balloons or or anti gravity.
It floats away. Magic does it.
I don't know. And you end up in the sky.
What's really funny is that's sothat's what Risky's revenge is.

(56:24):
But we didn't know Nintendo DSi was going to be around for so
short of a time. It was replaced by 3DS very
quickly. Like I I can't remember, but I
want to say was it 2 years? Was it?
It was, it was. Yeah, it.
Was it was exactly that, 'cause I was, I was in retail at the
time and at a conference, being dem with the 3DS, like they're
already, I can't. I couldn't believe how quickly

(56:46):
that had moved along. Yeah, yeah, I was still just
enjoying. The you know, the goofiness of
that thing and playing on what swap note and it was just it was
it was so much fun. Am I right?
It was swap note right? Because there's.
The 3DS one. There was the pit cross stuff.
Too, I know a lot of people did like, yeah, I, I.

(57:06):
Don't. I don't know that.
One specifically, but I know there was stuff that we draw
like. It was a whole other world of.
Things that were happening there, yeah.
So I I apologize. If I'm overlapping the two of
them. But yeah, I guess the, I guess
the point of that one is I'll becareful not to blur too much
into a fourth game with which Pirate's Curse, which is one
that was for 3DS. But the Nintendo DS game, when

(57:29):
we saw when we went to E3 and the 3DS was there and we're like
contracts starting to get signedfor work on the 3DS, people are
like, oh, the Nintendo DS was massive. 3DS is probably going
to be even bigger. Like people were just on it.
Like right away my mind was blown looking.
At that, like I, I, I didn't believe it until I held it in my

(57:50):
hands. Me too.
Me too. I still got a God.
I can't believe. My, my kids still play.
He's upstairs. No, not now, but he's, he's got
his 3DS upstairs. He still plays it now I I find
it to be. Magical because I also was just
completely I'm one of those people who's just in awe of
Virtual boy. I still think it's one of the
coolest things ever, but I also can hurt man.

(58:10):
I can see stereoscopic 3D with no problems.
I know a lot of people that justdoes not work for them and and I
I find the weird pitch black screen with just luminous red
pixels to be like I don't know I.
Get entranced by it. I have no idea why.
Happy 30th anniversary. Virtual Boy last week or two.

(58:30):
Sometime in the last two weeks, I think.
Oh man. Oh, so, yeah.
So anyway, Risky's Revenge was, you know, again we were self
funding, but this time we know that when we have something
good, we can release it because it's.
You've also got some stuff in the.
Filing cabinet too though that you're like you said, you're
pulling. From so there were some.
Pieces you want to take, Yeah. So there were there were some.
Elements At first it was like, hey, let's bring over the the

(58:52):
Shante advance stuff, but it kind of looked old.
We wanted to make sure that everything looked as as good as
everything we were doing on DS at the time.
So we had like, you know, I, I really like Contra 4I that's one
of my favorite games to have have worked on or directed.
It's like, it's beautiful. I didn't want the Shante game to

(59:13):
look somehow less than that. So we did all the sprites again
from scratch, rebuilt everythingfull, full animation and really
invested heavily into it thinking, OK, and we're going to
do 2 more episodes. We're going to get three games
out of this sort of. But yeah, as soon as we went to
E3, we saw 3DS. We're like, Oh my gosh, Nintendo
DS is going to get replaced fast.

(59:35):
Then I I basically like like just dropped certain idea.
Some ideas had already moved forward from Shante Advance just
for the sake of not wasting it. Mostly concepts, not assets.
Some some assets. One example is there's the
fountain that you throw the you go up and you talk to.

(59:55):
And that's what gives you your transformations, your wish, your
wish. Yeah, and.
The and the genie. Thing that comes out of it looks
like a mirror image of Shante that comes out it's like looks
just like her that was for Game Boy Advance that was just a
asset that was just like well I've got it may as well use it
so used it in Risky's revenge but with Risky's revenge like

(01:00:17):
it's not gonna pan out to have an episodic thing I'm like I
it's too late to drastically change this game so and we did
drastically change it in the sense that we put an ending on
it so I'm like all right well itwas going to end with on A on AI
guess a sour like it was gonna end on a cliffhanger you're

(01:00:38):
gonna have to get the next episode so I'm like well we're
kind of ending it on a pseudo cliffhanger so Shante loses her
her magic at the end I just spoiled it for you that's OK
though. The game's been out since 2010,
so and as well as as well. As its sequel, that that that
goes right into it, yes, yeah. And.
She's never a genie again. That's but at the at the end of

(01:00:59):
that game, yeah, risky wins, Shante loses and it's kind of
got a TuneIn next time feel to it.
Although we weren't there was not even a a boss originally at
the end of that game. It was it was a literal
cliffhanger. You were getting to a point
where it was like, oh, and then stop and then download the next
game because it's in a a second packet.
You got to go download but so wewe gave it a proper ending and

(01:01:21):
finished it, but all that. Other stuff that I.
Said about like, but what about the underworld?
What about the sky world? All those things ended up then
being shoved forwards into Pirate's Curse, which was the
3DS game but it had a whole new plot.
But it it was the recipient of all of the pieces that now heck.
Shante advance which? At this moment in time was still

(01:01:42):
cancelled and now you've got 2 episodic.
Whatever they would have been. Shante DSI games a worth of
concepts and some of them it inherited those two so poor
pirate's curse became the dumping ground of like
everything that that they failedto launch right.
So anyway, 20 all of which are also you mentioned it's PDS like
all. These things are available now

(01:02:03):
too. Yeah, you can get all of it.
You can see I have all the Switch, they're all on Steam.
They're all on, I think Xbox andPlayStation 2, but like,
they're, they're available everywhere.
So yeah, look, look what's funny.
About the series is the clues are all in there.
Like if you look at stuff and you go, why was that line
written that, that doesn't make sense.
Why was this set up and not paidoff?
It's it's been 10 years. They haven't paid off this setup

(01:02:24):
yet. What's going on here?
I, I, I like, believe me, there was whether I can clearly
remember it or not, there was always a plan for everything.
Some of the weird things were, were just things collide in
Risky's revenge. I can't remember if there's
still a, there's a climbing animation where you can climb
slow or you can climb fast. I can't remember if you hold the

(01:02:45):
run button and climb faster. I don't recall if that made it
into the final product or not, But some of her rope animations
and some of her running around animations, if you look at them,
she's got the black vest and thechoker, the, the black choker on
her costume. And then you look at and then
she'll start climbing the rope again and she's got the Shante
One costume on. Like it's like, hey, she doesn't
have the vest, she's just got the top with the strap on the

(01:03:07):
back. It's like, why is she changing?
Like no one ever talks about it.I assume just nobody notices or
bothered to to things happen. But it's because.
Numerous animations that we're going to be, she was going to go
have a, do a little bit of a, ofa, like undergo a costume change
between games. So when she goes in the

(01:03:30):
underworld and comes back, this is where all of the elements of
her costume having darker elements was to come in.
It's like, oh, so she's kind of grown up a little bit.
She's got a different look the, the, the black vest, the, the
pants having the, the kind of like the black elements in it
and the choker and stuff. Like it was like, Hey, we're

(01:03:50):
bringing a third color into the character design now when she
comes back for the third game. But all that stuff is just a
train wreck of of animation assets and things you can see in
Risky's revenge. Nobody seemed to care or really
notice. It's just a funny footnote.
Now you can go look at it. But but I guess the point is
when it did come out it it did great.
So Shante advanced. I'm sorry, Shante Risky's.

(01:04:13):
Revenge for? DSI like totally got Shante back
on the map. Fans started showing up.
It was like the indie game movement.
What was the club now? Yeah, you got like.
Cave story similar, I don't remember when it was close and
I'm like Dang this game is amazing.
I'm talking about Cave Story, people started.

(01:04:34):
To just. Sort of embrace that hey, some
of these amazing games can come out of other places now and I
think that carried us all the way without really getting into
all the the games that followed.You know, we've got Half Genie
Hero, the Kickstarter one and then 7 Sirens game #5 which is
the one that's all four K 2D animation, amazing game some

(01:04:57):
other time, but but they all continued.
You can imagine what the popularity of the Risky's
Revenge, which from 2010 that's still the most played Shante
game from what I can tell, just looking at whatever data I can
get my hands on. It's the one most people seem to
know and have played. And I think that's because it
was the one that showed up on iPad that your iPad came out.

(01:05:19):
There's just, there's just a lotof things that helped to get
that game in front of people at what felt like the right time
when digital distribution was kind of getting like, you know,
it's like it's new and weird andlike, is this acceptable?
Are we going to have digital games?
I don't know. For new games especially.
Too, Because like, there was there was stuff before that we
were like, oh, I could get like Super Mario Brothers on here.
But like, no, now you're starting to see new games coming

(01:05:41):
in. Yeah, yeah.
And they're and they're kind of weird.
Right. It's like, well, what?
Who? Made it.
Is it from? Is it from Capcom or Konami or
Namco? It's like, no, it's from some
place you've never heard of. It's like, as you say, it's not
one of those. Weird Japanese games they kept
from us for years and we only find out about.
No, no, it's from a company of California.
It's it's, it's somebody. Yeah.
And it's. And it's also strange.
I mean, even at the time of likeand there's no box like it was

(01:06:03):
the first time we launched a game.
We're like, Hooray, we have our nice display case with our whole
history of everything we've worked on.
I'm like, there's there's nothing to put there.
There's nothing. We don't have a box.
It's first time we launch a game.
No box. Like, huh, weird.
I guess it's just. It's just lives in in.
Digital land now, so that kind of, you know, you can kind of
see how that lays the groundworkfor the future of like physical

(01:06:25):
games and limit and run helping out and preserving stuff and
making physical copies and that goes on and is its own thing.
Actually, no, that's a good segue back.
It's a. It's a perfect.
Spot to swing back to to swing back perfect yeah right because
when we. Got to, you know, I'm older,
Aaron and I having kind of almost a reverse conversation of
one we had years and years ago where she's asking like we're

(01:06:47):
just talking about completely random things.
But it kind of came down to, youknow, one of these.
It wasn't literally this, but itwas kind of one of those, Hey,
if you ever won the lottery, what would you do?
You know, and I'm like, Oh, well, you know, it wasn't that
literally I I just forgot how wegot on the topic, but it was
kind of like, what are your hopes and dreams kind of thing?
She was asking me and I'm like, oh man, like seriously, if I was
like, you know, won the lottery,like I would I would be doing

(01:07:11):
the I would go, you know what, Iwould go finish Dante advance.
That's what I would do. Like that still bothers me that
it's that it's out there and notdone.
I would finish that game. And she's like, well, you ever
considered just like, maybe you should reach out to limited run?
We've just had such good luck with them, couldn't they?
You know, what do you think theywould?
I'm like, you know what, this isreally weird.

(01:07:32):
And around the same moment in time, Mike Straggy, who, you
know, I mentioned the the Boogerman programmer.
Yeah, I see. They call him Boogerman, but I
just I. Just tie it back together,
right? Yeah.
He's he's I. Think he's proud of that work
too though, so I think that's probably OK.
It's just booger that word man. So anyway, he's he and I have
the revenge. Of the nerds, he's got it.
Locked down, that's all. Yeah, right.

(01:07:53):
Right, but we. Had worked together for years,
years. I don't know how long it had
been. It had been well over a decade,
but not maybe not quite 2, but we'd every so often there'd be
an e-mail. Hey, how you doing was.
Clearing out hard. Drives and saw that Shante
advance game again and I'm like yeah man, someday.
And we've done that a number of times.

(01:08:13):
Well it just so happened he was reaching out and doing at the
same time Aaron was asking aboutlike hey would limited run maybe
be a good option for Shante advance?
Could he come back on a physicalcartridge?
And she's like, if that's reallywhat you want to do, have you
ever maybe why don't you just ask, right?
And like, funny thing did you were you?
Thinking a Game Boy Advance cartridge at that time, Like,

(01:08:34):
oh, we're just gonna do Game BoyAdvance Yeah, 'cause I'm like,
well, because the game. Because The thing is, it is
true. I had a physical cartridge in a
drawer that I would go back and play sometimes because it's the
only thing that I had left. I had one cartridge of it that
was a dude. It's not a specific reference, I
figured. It was real, like I'm I was
doing my my friends and wife. I'm not smart enough to make
this up. No, it's, it's real.
It's just a it's just a test cart that had a copy of the game

(01:08:55):
on it. The last time that I ever had
it, when it actually worked, youcould play it from beginning to
end. That was not the full game, but
the the full duration of everything available.
Yeah. And, and Mike had happened to
reach out and was like, hey, man, I was, you know, going
through doing this, doing the standard thing.
It's been five years. How you doing?
Ever want to finish that game together?
I'm like, yeah, it'd be cool someday, but I don't know what
would have to happen for that toline up.

(01:09:16):
And he's like, well funny thing,I might, I'm like, I might be
available now and I'm like, what?
For real? Like really.
Like you might like 'cause he'd been doing I think animatronics
and theme park more related to Wow type stuff like.
Like. Things like live experiences out
out of the yeah. In a completely different realm,
basically, yeah. I'm like, oh, that's crazy.

(01:09:38):
Like for real? Like are you serious?
And that's what prompted a conversation.
It just so happened. It was right around what was it?
I'm trying to remember what the event was, but it was one of
those things where we were Aaronand I found ourselves at, with
with Josh from limited run at anevent and, and we're like, Hey,
the funniest thing happened. What do you think of this?
He's like, that sounds amazing. I mean, we just like put it all

(01:10:00):
out there and he's like, that sounds incredible.
So then after that I have to I have to like put a.
Pin in that real quick 'cause he's like, yeah, yeah only
because I, I, I wanted to ask and it's kind of times out with
just like, yeah, there's like this Shante cultural preference
presence and like, yeah she's been peppered in other stuff too
but like I, I need to know aboutthe Smash Brothers call because
that's somewhere in the midst ofall this like only because that

(01:10:24):
would that I would I'd be like I'm done I can't do anything to
top this because like you end upgetting AI.
She was already a spirit in smash brothers.
You already had characters in smash Brothers, but like you,
you get the proverbial call thatsays like we want to put her as
a a me brawler skin in there. And then you also get the
announcement They get like, OK, it's Dante from Devil May Cry,
the Dragonborn from Elder Scrolls and tails and like the

(01:10:46):
tails, like you're up there withlike 4, right?
Like, I don't think it's I don'tthink it's.
Real I I don't think that stuff does not sink in.
I, I, I know it happened, but itjust doesn't, I don't know,
sometimes it doesn't seem like it really happened.
Like, was that like an e-mail? Somebody said like.
How does like now that you don'thave to talk about anything, you
can't talk about like someone would?

(01:11:06):
Someone would probably like, gosh, I don't even want to say
don't worry about it or what. Method I would vanish into.
Thin air. There's probably something I I
could say but can't. I'm trying to figure out what
story about so I just I. Just bring that up to say that
like Shante has only continued to be present in the culture,
including what I will bring up in in my way, shape or form.

(01:11:29):
However, that happened to say that like, no, she's in the
midst of like Doomslayer has a me costume, right?
Like they're these me costumes are epic and like you are right
there on the pedestal with I think I think I've got a.
Good way to to explain it without without saying something
that is like probably extremely NDAD is what's this behind my

(01:11:50):
hang on, I've got like a. Gum bar out of my head, but go
on. Please be careful.
No, it's, no, it's I think. It, I think it's fine.
I, I think that it's, I, I really think it comes down to
the sheer amount of fan support.They're like, fans were
extremely vocal. And I, I don't know for a fact,
but my assumption is that that caught somebody's eye.

(01:12:12):
It, it, there was because it wasunavoidable.
Fans were just so vocal about characters they wanted to see.
Yeah, they they took, they took surveys.
I'm sure that was it was there. I've never.
Been Privy to any conversations about how this got decided.
So I actually it is cloaked in mystery for me.
But in the end, when an opportunity came, I'm like I, I
was just like a absolutely anything, anything that could be

(01:12:34):
done. You even had the monkey
transformation. In the real in the reveal video
too, like that's the other thing.
I was like, Oh my God. Yeah, I and and.
All of that stuff. I was just more like, we're open
to literally anything that couldhappen.
Please, please, whatever. Like soccer.
I don't be mad at me. It was.
Announced years ago. I'm not blowing anything, OK?
Don't be mad at me, Soccer. I don't be mad at me, but

(01:12:55):
anyway, sorry, sorry, I apologize for derailing there.
But like I got you saying like Shante's cultural presence is
there, right. Like that's, I think that's a
good way. To yeah, thank you because
that's a good gauge for like wasthis successful because like
financially, sure, we've been able to continue to make more so
it's done enough to like it paysits rent, you know it's it it

(01:13:15):
does fine You could tell based on how we're all living that
we're like no one's you know it's not like it's a.
We're not all like that's, you know, we don't have.
I don't know what I've been trying to figure out what to
say. Gold wristwatches.
I don't what do what do what do The Yeah, that's all we don't
have. We don't have monocles yet.

(01:13:37):
We're what we're. Doing OK, we can keep going.
That's the way I would frame it.But fan support has been
phenomenal. Most of the opportunities that I
can point to have to do with either.
It was a great I, you know, I believe I'm a huge fan of Shante
because I did not create it. I'm a huge fan.
I'm, I think the original idea and the concept is wonderful.

(01:13:59):
There's something warm and genuine and just so pleasing and
attractive about it. And then the fan support for it
has opened every door. I mean, there's been
technologies opening doors too. Like as we move on and kind of
stay aligned with like the new things that are kind of coming
out and all that, that's great too.
But at each point it's also in equal measures fan support and

(01:14:20):
just love of the series. And also, I mean, it's worth
calling out the general positivity around it is always
nice. People want to be involved with
Ashante product because it's a positive space.
Like people always are nice. We don't have It's not one of
those brands that has just like angry people all over it.
People generally feel like they're a reflection.
Yeah, the the kindness. And the caring, you know, kind

(01:14:44):
of just general positivity of the brand if he brings.
That out in the. Fans too yeah so any anyhow yeah
in the in the end and and say going back to the Shante advance
is the demand is there the fans are there limited run had the
ability to make Game Boy Advancecards lovely.
Purple cartridge, too. Yeah, yeah.
And they didn't have that. Yeah, they didn't.

(01:15:05):
Have that before that was a, a pretty recent thing.
And it's like, you know what, it's a, it seemed like a safe
investment for them. We had the thing we'd always
wanted to bring back. I was done with 7 sirens and it
we're starting to be like man getting, getting the, the, the,
the itch. When's the next Shante thing?
What are we gonna do? Like who, who can partner?

(01:15:26):
Can we do another thing 'cause you know, you always have to
find another. It's always too expensive to
just now just do it. There's like kind of always a
need for a, a partner and, you know, limited run, having the
ability to do it, being willing to fund it, feeling them,
feeling confident that it was going to be fine.
If you can believe this, fine tojust allow me and and Aaron and

(01:15:50):
Mike Straggy to go and straggy him.
Michael being available to program it and willing to come
back and out of what it was his current career and go back to
what he used to do 20 years ago.There's a lot of factors.
And then everyone being willing to be, and this is kind of a big
one for both, you know, way forward and its management and
and limited run and its management and then the fans,

(01:16:10):
everyone being willing to be patient enough to allow it to
finish incubating in its weird, archaic egg cocoon of 20 years
ago. It didn't have a very natural
conclusion, like we had to go back and open up.
This is, I guess when we went back, we're like, OK, we're
doing Shante advance again. We're gonna finish it.

(01:16:30):
We weren't gonna. We weren't.
Gonna make an homage to a Game Boy Advance game.
This is gonna be finish the game.
So same people finish the game. Like if you've ever gone back
through, I don't know, like yourcamera roll or some backup you
made 5 or 10 years ago on on a hard drive and you're trying to
find a thing, do that, but but make it 20.

(01:16:54):
Make it. Complicated and technical too,
yeah. And and then go, well, my
computer can't run anything that's as like, oh, it's in
Windows. Oh, that's too new.
Go back to DOS. It's like, oh.
Windows. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, we, some
of these tools didn't support Windows.
Sorry, can't do Windows right. And it's like, well, wait a
minute, how do we get the, you know, so all these problems

(01:17:14):
start to to show up? Wait a minute, We didn't have
music back then. We were using the Godzilla
domination music. Who?
Who's gonna write this music? Maddie Lim wrote the new music.
We didn't have music. For this game.
And she did an amazing, amazing job.
It was so good. It fits.
The the time period too, like itfits the, I mean if it's the
series, but it fits the time period more than anything and

(01:17:35):
and. Using tools, being forced to use
tools because it's an actual Game Boy Advance game, like a
legit one and not an homage. You're forced to use all the all
of the existing tools you had touse the same old stuff like this
is this is the day. I know this is gonna sound
stupid but this is the day before.
Like undo buttons and stuff. Like you move forward if you
make a mistake, shut the programdown and reload it.

(01:17:58):
Like no backsies. Like this is like we don't have
RAM to store 2 instances of of aof a oh, a project that wants to
be able to do things like undo like you, you fancy people in
your in your modern era. So this is just one, it's just
one funny example, but yeah, so you had to go kind of get in The
Time Machine, use very old equipment and finish this game.

(01:18:22):
And yeah, you don't you don't really get a lot of advantages
to using modern hardware. Maybe on rare occasion, like
builds were certainly faster, like you could build the game in
milliseconds, but you still it'slike, well, yeah, but that trip
through Dosbox to get your animation files opened and tweak
something and then put it back, it's like that's that's a little

(01:18:44):
bit of a journey you've got to go on.
But in the end we did finish thegame.
And then to to like circling wayback on your point about is it
easier? There are things that are
changed, like platforming back in 2003, the way that the first
and, and at that time, Shante Advance worked, they're very
floaty controls. Like that was kind of a thing.

(01:19:05):
You'd push the button and then you weren't expected to be a
very, like, dexterous player. Like people were usually like,
yeah, push the jump button whileyou're floating.
Game Boy Color Games, Yeah. Right.
It's like, well, once your character's airborne, you could
use that time to make other decisions about input pushing
buttons. And, you know, not as many
buttons on the on the platform. So you're generally gonna wait

(01:19:27):
for the character to enter another state so you can push a
button and have it mean something else.
Like not a lot of overlapping controls where you got like you
can claw grip your controller and push 9 buttons at once,
Right? Or it's probably more like,
what, 16? How many buttons?
24 Yeah, you get. Some of these claw mouses out
there like, yeah, forget. It so you get so in the end, to

(01:19:47):
make it feel modern and responsive, we're like, yeah,
you gotta the gravity pulls the character down much faster than
it used to. The faster your feet can hit
that platform, the faster you can make the next button input,
the more accurate you can be with your with your gameplay.
That's like one example of dozens.
So the we tuned the gameplay to make it feel like.

(01:20:08):
The best version. Of what it could be as in the
modern day. So we preserved everything we
could, anything that was worth preserving, which which is to
say everything that was already built like, we basically
preserved it. But if there was something that
was like, oh, we've learned since then how to make
platforming more precise and better.
We can do better hit boxes. We can do, you know, we would do

(01:20:28):
things better like, but that's basically from having more
experience. I guess you could say we applied
our experience to make a better game, but we preserved
everything that that old us from20 years ago had intended.
We left all that stuff as is. So it's weird.
It's really odd. It's it's like having two teams
working in parallel but through some kind of time travel machine

(01:20:51):
where less. Experienced.
Couple of guys were teeing up things that then more
experienced guys had to inherit and then fix.
Does that make sense? But they were both us.
That's really strange and. You have both like, hey, you
could just do the Game Boy Advanced version and you could
do the the modern version you got.
You got a little bit of both, right?

(01:21:11):
Yeah, and the rule of thumb withthis one too, for for the sake
of kind of preserving it and trying to keep the intent there
was the the the I feel like the 2003 version of of specifically
of me and Mike Straggy talking about the purely the gameplay
stuff was 2003 ones of us have priority.
That's the original vision. So it try to adhere to that.

(01:21:32):
New modern versions of us are like let's not pave over what
old us did, let's try to preserve it.
Unless those guys were complete morons.
Then we pave over it. Then we fix it and make it
better. But if we made terrible
decisions in the past. Keep them if, keep them if.
The integrity of the game could be preserved if it was just a
bad idea. Like, oh, look, you know, that's

(01:21:54):
not how people do hit boxes. We know better now.
Like, well, let's fix those. Let's make the game like, no,
don't make the don't make the hair whiff on the thing.
You know, when you're trying to attack, Obviously it's supposed
to hit. So yeah, we learned and applied
a lot. So the version now.
Oh, and then kind of tying into that is Aaron was like, you
know, very involved in this game.

(01:22:16):
She's usually involved in all the games in in various
capacities, either as an animator.
Sometimes she'll do some of the artwork or older games.
She did a lot of the animation in this one.
She was super involved with the the high resolution assets that
are in the console one. So the the artwork you see now
you've got a lot of in the sorry.
Well, maybe I would have set thestage a little bit once we

(01:22:38):
finally actually finished the Shante Advance game in 2024,
released the reproduction cards,like if you want to call them
that, the the retro cards, the things that actually play on
Gameboy advance. Once that was done and we'd
finally like made-up for that poor.
Cancelled game from 20. Years ago, finally had it done.
Then with that completely in thebag, started the, the actual

(01:23:02):
like serious work on the ports. We'd we had done a little bit to
make sure that it was going to work like 4K resolution artwork
and some basic engine stuff had started.
Oh gosh, as far back as we had aNintendo Indy direct where we
talked about it. That was when we started.
We, we started and then like slow rolled it, let the let the
the 4K artwork kind of catch up and then put the whole thing

(01:23:26):
together into being the console version, which is the version
that just launched last week. And that's the version that's up
for pre-order right now, which gives you both.
You can play it in Game Boy Advance mode, so if you're on
Nintendo Switch or Switch 2, or play straight on Switch 2I.
Can tell you that. Right now, yeah, yeah, you can
play it. In Game Boy Advance mode, if you
want to see what that version was, if you want to play it in

(01:23:47):
the modern version, it's still apixel art game.
But all of the, the HUD, the illustrations, anything that was
not intended to be pixels is high resolution HD or 4K
depending on, you know, if you're Doctor Handhelder,
etcetera, with these gorgeous illustrations and character
artwork. And then, and then of course,

(01:24:09):
we've got that deluxe edition console version and for console
PC that adds 3 more costumes in which is that was not us
withholding something. We actually didn't think of
those costumes until after we had already long since launched
and sent the Game Boy Advance game to manufacture.
This was, hey, maybe we could add something new for the

(01:24:30):
console version. So that's what we came up with.
But in case anyone was wonderinglike, hey, why didn't you put
them in there? It's like, Oh no, that was in my
time as a developer who I'm done.
I hand the game over to QA, theywork on it, it goes to
manufacturing. We're talking months and months
from my time being basically done with the game until doing
those those costumes. It's not quite a year, but is a

(01:24:52):
long time later from for me now that it's all just comes out
back-to-back. I think from the the fan, the
fan or consumer perspective, it's hey, it's all kind of like
hitting. It's like, yeah, but these are
separate efforts that, you know,do one and then step away from
it for a while and then come back and do another one.
But that's the crazy. It's it's so intertwined.

(01:25:13):
I, I don't, I don't know how I mean, No, it's.
Just whooping through. You covered 30 years of history
plus years of history, and I feel bad.
Like, do you? Do you?
Usually get to say things on these.
I just talked and talked. I don't know.
See, it's important for me. I know when to shut up.
Well, I don't. No, see, I I know when to shut

(01:25:35):
up because, like, no, I, you're,you're weaving everything
together beautifully. There's nothing I can contribute
by talking besides saying something stupid and interfering
with good historical informationhere.
So. Oh, thanks a lot.
No. It's, it's, it's crazy having
these first three games are so weird.
And it's always strange cause from the fans perspective, the

(01:25:57):
first three games are always gonna be Shante, then, then,
then Risky's Revenge in 2010 andthen it's gonna be Pirate's
Curse in 2013. That's the first three games.
They're all three pixel games. You go from 8 bit to 16 ish bit
to 32 ish bit. I guess you'd say that's the way
it's always been. It's been that way.
From 2000. 2 when Shante One came out to 2013 when Pirates

(01:26:20):
Chris came out. But now we got this new old
game, which is really the number2 game that I've always known
about and have, you know, intimate.
It was always there for you. Yeah, for me.
Yeah, exactly. For me it was.
Always there. Yeah.
Pirates, Chris was always my game #4 Half genie Hero was
always my game #5 I'm counting these.

(01:26:40):
Right, Right. I feel like I'm going to say I
think so, yes. But you know.
But then I do. Yeah, but it, it's always been
confusing for me because it's like also a lot of times from
because I also write all of thisstuff.
So a lot of times I'm like, did I wait?
Did I do that? Did I already tell that part of
the story? Do you have to like go back?
To a Bible or like a like a Yeah, I have to go back.

(01:27:03):
I just have, I just have a like a rat's nest of notes that tries
to make sense out of things. But what gets really confusing
too is when you've got stuff like Half Genie Hero has Friends
to the end DLC, which is a game that inserts itself into the
into the middle of the main adventure.

(01:27:24):
And then pirate Queen's quest isa what if story of what if risky
boots like won the day and things went her way, which is
more of an alternative history because it doesn't it can't
really be what happened. It's basically, hey, I think
she's embellishing this whole story.
I don't think that's real. But keeping track of those, it
does get a little nuts because the DLCS are the friends of the

(01:27:47):
End is Real. That's canonical.
But the other ones like, well, Iremember that time she was a
police officer. It's like, well, that was joke
stuff. That's that's all.
Tongue in cheek that. Never happened.
Like that's just, that's the developers, you know, us, we're
just screwing around. We're giving you a funny
adventure as as a TLC pack. And I feel like the dream that

(01:28:08):
when Shante goes to the beach and Risky tries to steal the
sand or whatever, I can't remember, I have to go back and
read what I wrote. It's like, what was that?
But whatever it was, that's kindof like, we're just playing and
having fun. That's the stuff that's not
really canonical, like, or when she wears her pajamas and goes
on adventure, like conjuring, like riding a cloud to sleep on

(01:28:28):
and float around. These are just silly side
things, but they have storylines.
So yeah, keeping it. Oh man, keeping it all from
contradicting itself can be a bit of a chore, but so far,
generally so good. Just do what South Park does
and. Just go to the Shante wiki and
just cancel. I've done that too, except

(01:28:50):
what's really, really too bad. You remember at one point I said
I kind of give my versions of things and I start to blur even
like even when we're doing. Stories like like we're.
Doing today and talking about it.
Sometimes when those things get dredged up and then quoted and
end up in a wiki, then later I'll come back and go, oh,
that's incorrect. But it's already kind of close
to the Internet. The Internet has it now.
And it kind of took hold like, oh Dang, I can't, I can't undo

(01:29:13):
that. But I kind of sometimes want to
go in there and be like, well, no, actually, blah, blah, blah.
But yeah, I don't know, just tryto.
What's at least nice is these games are generally so light
hearted that I think sometimes that stuff is.
It's easier to forgive. When there's a, it's like it's

(01:29:33):
an adventure storyline with a lot of comedy in it.
I see you'll drop a joke in the.Next one about that.
That's all it is, yeah. Right.
We'll, we'll, we'll sometimes lampoon our own errors in the
past, and that's kind of just the nature of it.
So yeah, I don't know if that's kind of, that's kind of it.
I I-33 games crazy The history of the most crazy.

(01:29:56):
But more importantly. People have the chance to get
them now, physical. I mean, first of all, they can
just get anyway. Just load it right on the
consoles now, or PC. Yeah, they're all there.
Limited runs got them for. Another like week and 1/2 until
September 7th. So get the physical, get the
physical. You don't have to worry about
anything. Then you got the physical copy,
so yes. And also if you're.
Not I don't know if if we've talked about this, if you are

(01:30:18):
like, well, I want the digital one, but you wanted like
collector's edition type stuff. This time around, we did do a
merch thing that's separate fromthe game.
So you can buy if you're like, Ilike buying a collector's
edition with all of the stuff init.
It's there like you can get that.
But if you're like, what I really want to buy is just some
of the some of the merchandise stuff like you can't piece meal

(01:30:39):
it, but there's different categories of of things.
So we have some really cool likefor example, the the, the, the
big fancy collector's edition, the one that's like the go all
out crazy one. It's like, yeah, it's the
trading cards and a binder. And there's like the the light
up Shante and stuff and the squid Baron plush.
But then there's like another set of just like individual

(01:31:00):
merch things too. So if you're like, you know,
I'm. I'm.
Good, but I would like a a a thing.
You got options. We got.
Yeah, we got you. Covered.
There's probably something therethat that you'll like.
If you like the if you like the Shante, there's probably a thing
for you. Yeah.

(01:31:22):
And I guess we didn't. Oh, but no, no, you go ahead,
please. I was going to say, you got
wave. Forward.com, you got limited
run.com for both you get you geteverything covered, yes.
Yeah, so you can go to either ofthose places.
And then we didn't talk about itbecause it's just a funny
footnote. But I'll mention real quick the,
the, the, the console version has the battle mode, which is a

(01:31:44):
a complete rewrite to actually perform great on your console of
what was the link cable game. So the Game Boy Advanced link
cable, it does work if you if you have the Game Boy Advanced
version and you happen to have an old link cable laying around,
you can have one copy of the game and you can serve it to
three other people who also haveGame Boy advances or maybe a

(01:32:04):
Game Cube with a Game Boy player.
Anything with the Game Boy Advance cable port, you can play
4 player. I didn't click that on the menu
of the. Game yet?
I didn't, I thought it was like a boss first or something, but
oh OK, it's a crazy. It's a, it's a crazy thing.
It's very, very, very silly. It's basically kind of like,
what if Shante had a Bomberman kind of a mode.

(01:32:26):
Just, you know, I, I. Guess I'd just say.
Temper your expectations. This is a This is a battle mode
from 2003, when things were fairly simplistic.
I'd say little something extra though, that's all.
It's a. Bonus.
Get your get your buddies and just knock everybody all over
the stage and bounce them into spikes and have a good have a

(01:32:49):
good old time. But it's there.
We've never had that before. So that's kind of a fun thing.
It's like it's the first just dabbling in Shante multiplayer
for for the first time. Although I mean for the first
time meaning in 2003, but I don't know.
What a modern. Version of yeah, I don't know
what a modern version multiplayer Ashante would look
like but this is a throwback version of a multiplayer Ashante

(01:33:13):
game so when you when you play it, you know check that out
that's what battle mode is and that's why it exists and that's
why it's the way that it is if you're curious yeah, so I don't
know mission accomplished I guess we got yeah, well, we got
I just. I got to say thank you again.
That was that was fantastic. I I'm a nerd, so I love man No
I. Love, I love I can talk video

(01:33:35):
games all day and I it's funny talking about ones that I
personally worked on is like a thank you.
It's very near. There's so much.
There's so much there. So much.
Personally, I love talking aboutgames.
In general, like if we could just, we could, we could.
Go off. On a stand standing invite.
You say the word, it'll be, we'll be here.
So anytime. But I do want to remind

(01:33:56):
everybody, wayforward.com, firstof all, limited run.com's got
your, got the physical copies with the physical media heads.
They only have it till September7th though, Matt, That's it.
Time's all messed up. So.
That's that's. That otherwise, like you know,
Matt, I I appreciate your time. Like you said, listen, anytime
standing invite we'll talk any games you want.

(01:34:18):
I will just drop my my my closing Barb here to just you
know, if you guys still talk to Konami at all, make sure you
please help help them save Castlevania.
Don't need to respond to anything with that.
Just if you got a call there, help them save, help them save
Castlevania. But that's that's neither here
nor there. So I appreciate your time, Sir.

(01:34:39):
Thank you. No, thank you and any I sorry
for going so, so crazy long. I hope this is all right.
You're you're fine. I can hurt.
My feelings, so I'll take I I had I had a blast.
So thank you, I hate doing this.Part without Ray.
All right you can find our guestMatt Bozon waveforward.com.
You can find Shante limited run games until September 7th.

(01:35:01):
Get your physical copy for all the modern consoles.
The game is out now if you want to get it digitally, but you
have until September 7th to get your pre-order in.
I will remind everybody that C3 channel 3 dot GG slash
waveforward has everything way forward every game they've got
that we can find. Apparently there's some more we
may have hidden. We'll find out about that

(01:35:22):
someday. But you can also find the
podcast 3:33 AM Eastern, all themajors, Spotify, YouTube Music,
Apple, Audible. There's some other weird one I
thought of recently, but what iHeartRadio, we're on there.
Whatever, name it all, you name it, we're there.
There's ones I don't even know. I'm Dan Ray, not here, but he's
with us in spirit. Executive producer Joel Willis,

(01:35:45):
theme song Caster Garden C3 dot GG slash Caster Garden.
Go find his new album. He is only continuing to rise.
That's it, we're done. Have a good day everybody.
Channel 3. Is the future.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}0130 Matt Bozon of WayForward for Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution

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0130 Matt Bozon of WayForward for Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution

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