Recently, I got the opportunity to talk to a member of Bipedal Studios, an up-and-coming studio that has already begun to release numerous indie titles and is looking to release even more very soon with its Kickstarter coming to an end in the coming weeks.
Throughout the interview, we spoke about all kinds of different projects that they have been working on, over the past years, as well as their thoughts on the future of the studio and its projects.
| Editor’s Note: |
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| During this interview, we were requested to refer to the interviewee as Bipedal Studios to keep their identity private for the time being. |
An Introduction to Bipedal Studios
Before we jump into the interview, let’s get a little background information regarding Bipedal Studios and how it has managed to get to the position it has where it is currently attempting to get numerous games released physically.
Bipedal has been actively composing music and experimenting with game development since 2019/2020, and in 2023 they finally decided to get into homebrew development to combine those two things with their love for retro games.
What started as a simple Game Boy game became the start of a series of projects covering the whole Game Boy family of systems and the NES as well. Recently, Dalyen Games opened a Kickstarter campaign to release their games physically.
Within the Kickstarter campaign, there are 6 different games that can be supported by the gaming community; these games are Anctrayl, Return to Anctrayl, R-G-Bleeki!, Galacard, Galacard Platinum, and Galacard Advance, with each of these projects being fun and challenging for the players.
Within the Kickstarter, there are 6 different games that gamers can support. Were each of these projects developed by just yourself or a development team?
For the most part, all of my games were made just by me. I wrote all of the code, designed all of the graphics, and composed all of the music. However, I also recruited testers for some of the games and got help from homebrew communities on Discord on certain technical aspects.
I also got help from Michel Iwaniec on Return to Anctrayl, since he developed the audio driver that I was struggling to work with. That same driver was also used on R-G-Bleeki! later on.
Each of these projects must have been a big undertaking. How long did it take you to develop these games?
These projects aren’t really ambitious at all. Most of the games took a month or less to make. Galacard was originally finished in around two weeks, but it took some more time to polish the gameplay and fix bugs after release. R-G-Bleeki! was finished in only three or four days of development. Return to Anctrayl took a year to make due to technical issues. Between the start of development and the game’s actual release, I published three other games.
With so many projects in the works, did you develop them all at the same time, or did you work on each project on its own before moving onto another?
Some of the games that I’ve released were made between development hiatuses of other projects. Return to Anctrayl’s development started right after the release of the original Anctrayl, but it got delayed for almost a year due to technical issues.
In the middle, I made the first two Galacard games and released an old game – the first one to originally use the Bipedal Studios name, in fact – called Crystal Clear. Galacard Advance also started its life before Return to Anctrayl came out, but I decided to take a break from it, and it didn’t get finished until January this year.
During the development process, were there many issues that you came across that delayed the development process?
I had many issues regarding ROM usage and storage organization. Some games – especially the NES ones – had to get some content cut because I had organized the cartridge storage in a way that I couldn’t really add anything else without changing most of the games’ code. Another big issue I had was implementing an audio driver on the NES. GBDK isn’t really used for NES development by most people, so I had to rely a lot on the help of Michel Iwaniec, developer of the FamiStudio SDAS driver.
While going through the development process, did you feel inspired by anything that helped push your ideas into fruition?
Some of the games in this campaign were inspired by existing games. The Anctrayl games obviously draw a lot from Snake and Sokoban style games, and, in a less obvious way, R-G-Bleeki! combines concepts from Nintendo’s Panel de Pon – also known as Tetris Attack or Puzzle League – and Namco’s Mr. Driller. The Galacard series originally drew inspiration from a real life card game that I played once. I thought it was fun, so I decided to make a video game inspired by it. Despite its complexity, it ended up spawning two sequels.
What is something about your games that would make them stand out within the gaming industry?
Well, I know that my games certainly aren’t the most ambitious and, to some extent, they’re a little bit weird conceptually, but I know there’s an audience for them. I always try to make something new, either by combining beloved old concepts or adapting ideas and mechanics from outside the world of video games. I also like making games that I can enjoy playing myself. Even Galacard, which I thought wasn’t really my kind of game, turned out really fun. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have developed sequels.
Even though I’m a huge fan of platformers and shoot-em-ups, puzzle games are the most fun to develop. In that genre, I find it easier to experiment with interesting mechanics to create something weird and unique or introduce people to existing gameplay concepts they might not have seen before. That’s what I think I can bring to the table.
How do you manage your own expectations and stop ‘feature creep’ from occurring with so many different projects in the pipeline?
Most feature cuts in my games have been a result of technical limitations or conceptual complexity. The games themselves aren’t very complex anyway, but sometimes some features aren’t able to make it into the final product. For example, Galacard Platinum was initially going to have different backgrounds and more music, but this concept was scrapped because it was too ambitious for me, and I was running out of space anyway. That idea was eventually repurposed for Galacard Advance.
Are there any plans to push these titles further, or are you looking to move on to bigger and better things?
I like exploring new ideas and goals, but I also love sequels, so I do both. I don’t really know what’s next right now, but I guess time will tell. Of course, I also want the existing titles to get more traction and would love to hear what people think about them. That’s one of the main reasons why Paul and I launched the Kickstarter in the first place.
What led you to create Bipedal Studios in the first place, along with picking such a unique name?
One day, in 2023, I was bored and sketched some simple things on my phone. One of those sketches was a star-like shape that looked a little bit like a person standing. At the time, I was offering free music for other people’s games, and that drawing inspired me to use the name Bipedal for that purpose.
Soon after, I developed Crystal Clear, the earliest game to feature the name Bipedal. Spike Hopper, one of my more recent games, is actually older, but the Bipedal branding was added later on. When I released Anctrayl, I redesigned the star sketch into an early version of my current logo. The new logo, which I’m still using, made its proper debut on Galacard.
Besides Kickstarter, what else have you done to show off Bipedal Studios and the numerous projects within?
At one point, I reluctantly started to use a lot of social media such as X/Twitter, BlueSky and even Reddit to promote my content. I’m also active in some retro game communities on Twitch. Before I had any of those, I’d only use Discord, which I still use to promote all of my stuff.
However, at the end of the day, it’s all about finding the right people. I think I’m lucky I met Gilbert – developer of Hazard: Let Us Out! – on Discord, because it was him who put me in contact with Paul of Dalyen Games. To this day, there is little to no coverage of my games, so I hope these physical releases
bring more attention to what I do.
Now that you are beginning to push forward with your games, how do you plan to expand Bipedal Studios and its repertoire of games?
Right now, I feel like I’m solidifying Bipedal Studios as a brand with the standardized branding (logo and jingle) and, of course, physical releases. Now, I think all I need is a larger audience for my games. I know homebrew games and puzzle games are both fairly niche, but it’s all about liking what you’re doing and hoping someone likes it as well.
I’ll probably keep coming up with fun new ideas for games or perhaps even more sequels to existing games. Maybe I could also recycle old, unfinished ideas and turn them into brand new games like I did with PixPlus. That game was in development right before Galacard but was quickly scrapped and remade from scratch a year later. The in-game music for that early version ended up getting recycled for Galacard.
Finally, how do you feel about the state of the gaming industry as of late?
I don’t think there’s much I can say about big budget multi-platform games at the moment. I’m not really interested in that. However, I’m happy that indie games like Celeste and Balatro have become mainstream, because it’s proof that you don’t need to be part of a huge company to make your game stand out.
There’s also some impressive work going on in the homebrew scene, with games such as AsteBros, Cronela’s Mansion, and Super Sunny World, and I think it’s nice that we have publishers that work hard to turn these into commercial products and market them to retro game enthusiasts.
I’ve always admired the company M2 and their collaborations with Sega, because they’re basically just making homebrew games as well. I’m also excited for the release of the Nintendo Switch 2. I got the original Switch back in 2018 because of its amazing exclusives and innovative concept, and I feel like its successor won’t disappoint.
If you would like to support Bipedal Studios and their upcoming projects, feel free to check out their Kickstarter which is set to end April 6th, or check out their website to find more information about Bipedal Studios and its socials.
For more Thumb Wars Gaming coverage, check out our review of The First Berserker: Khazan or check out how Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is making its way onto PlayStation 5.
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I am a long-time writer who enjoys talking about numerous different game genres as well as playing them. My main focuses are games like Helldivers 2, Warframe, and so much more.
