I recently had the opportunity to review #BLUD, a solid action-adventure RPG with a distinct cartoon aesthetic that I praised for its unconventional take on some classic gaming conventions that made for a fun debut title from Exit 73 Studios. CGMagazine recently had the chance to talk via email to the Art and Sound Director for #BLUD, Bob Fox, alongside the game’s writer, Gregory Lane, giving readers insight into the development of the recently released title along with a teaser regarding #BLUD’s future.
What were the primary inspirations behind the art style and narrative of #BLUD? How did 90s cartoons influence the game’s development, any specific influences outside of the numerous Easter eggs and references throughout the game?
Bob Fox: Our initial inspiration was The Powerpuff Girls meets Zelda: A Link to the Past. The two artists, Chris Burns and Bob Fox, both went to art school during a time period when Cartoon Network was really starting to take off. With shows such as Dexter’s Lab and Samurai Jack really pushing a new version of the old U.P.A. cartoon style. It had a huge influence on our art style as we were starting off as animators.
Another large influence would have to be John Carpenter. There are many visual influences from The Thing as well as a large influence on the music style.
Can you tell us more about Becky Brewster and her journey in #BLUD? How did you approach creating her character? She definitely stands out with her pink colour palette versus everyone else.
Gregory Lane: Becky’s colour comes from two places — a simple, focused design (in the same way that Mega Man is blue) and a juxtaposition of the “traditional” girl colour against a backdrop of horror and violence. Buffy the Vampire Slayer did this with the characters’ namesake, except that Buffy did so much butt-kicking that the name became tougher than its perceived preppy status prior.
Throughout the story, we get a lot of Becky’s perspective as she interacts with objects and other people, so we thought she should come into her own as she finds her place in a new town, new school, and new role of fighting vampires.
#BLUD features a unique combination of dungeon crawling and social media elements that act as your RPG management systems. How early did you decide this was the approach you wanted to incorporate into the experience? Any insight or scrapped ideas relating to this aspect would be great.
Bob Fox: The idea actually started as an animated series pitch many years ago, where we also came up with the name #BLUD. We figured Becky was at the age that she would be overly obsessed with social media like most kids.
It was later on during the game’s development that we decided to add the social media aspect to match the original name and idea. We also came up with the idea to use hashtags as a shorter way to give hints to players who did not feel like reading every mission post.
Gregory Lane: The dungeon backdrop also allowed us to develop archetypal side characters, such as Morgan the witch, Terrell the healer, etc. At the same time, it allowed us to fill a modern world with mythical creatures by asking: “What if there really was a dungeon under the school?”
Exit 73 Studios is known for its 2D animation. Can you walk us through the process of bringing the vibrant, animated world of #BLUD to life? Perhaps how making a game differs from, say, keyframing for a short.
Bob Fox: We treated animating for the game very similarly to how we would for any other project. The one major difference being that we had to animate every movement in 8 different angles in order for the characters to work in a top-down game style. It added a ton of extra work to the animation process, but once it was finished, we were able to get so much more use out of something such as a run cycle compared to a normal project.
After all the game’s character animations were finished, we still had to finish around 17 minutes of cutscenes/cinematics that were treated very much how we would animate on any other project.
Are there any plans for post-launch content or updates for #BLUD? Any wild hopes and long-term aspirations for the property? Perhaps a Becky Brewster branded pencil set with matching vampire teeth sharpener?!
Bob Fox: We definitely have some plans for DLC for #BLUD. Not sure how much we can say, but things might get hairy for our heroine.
One long-term hope for us was to finally see #BLUD as an animated series, being that it started as a pitch for TV.
Looks like there is more in store for Becky Brewster beyond slaying vampires, for those interested in checking out the game, #BLUD is now available on all major platforms.
