Road to Release - Devlog Series
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another installment of Road to Release, the DevLogs series of Two Strikes! Today we pick up right where we left off last time, speaking again with the mastermind behind the work, the one and only Danilo Barbosa! Today is about delving a little deeper into the setting of Two Strikes, so let’s dive in!
Hey hey Danilo, how’s it going? What do you say we skip the introductions this time and go straight for the jugular; Why did you base Two Strikes specifically in the Sengoku period? Danilo: The Sengoku period in Japan is one of the most convoluted periods in Japan's history. From the country's unification to the cradle of many legends like Goemon and Yasuke. Samurai still ruled and the common folks suffered under endless wars.
And where does the Shinigami Tournament come from? What is its motivation? Danilo: The Shinigami tournament is an idea from our lead artist, Gerson Oshiro. Big fan of Japanese darker artists and culture, he wanted to bring this to the game and his idea was to basically kill everybody in the game for that to happen. Even the characters from the first game. At the time I thought it was quite fitting and explained why they kept fighting even though they're being killed every 15 seconds. The Shinigami's motivation changed throughout the years. Initially started being just the cliché that was depicted in many manga and anime, from the god of death being bored and looking for some souls to torment, but nowadays is more about bringing more conflict and despair to not only the lives of the warriors in the tournament, but for all those that cross their paths.
Wow! And tell us, what are the references for the artistic style? Danilo: 7 Samurai is the ultimate reference, but Jojo's bizarre adventure and Darkerstalker are also great influences and to compliment all that, a little bit of Tarantino.
You mentioned that the Sengoku period gave birth to many legends, tell us, are the characters of Two Strikes based on real figures? Danilo: Yes, Goemon and Yasuke are the characters that were based on real historical figures in the Sengoku era. Of course, our lead artist created his own version of them, and we are crazy to tell their stories in the new mode we are working on at the moment.
What were the main references, both visual and playable, to land the message? Danilo: Since our main reference is movies, we wanted to keep the gameplay completely without UI. The main reason behind it is to keep the player involved in what they were seeing, a duel. In the movies, there's no life bar for Samurai 1 and Samurai 2. So, if we wanted to create a game that could succeed in creating a movie + game experience this has to be gone.
But of course, removing it and expecting players to simply accept it is difficult and confusing when talking about game design. So, to solve some of the issues, we added some visual cues to help the players understand every that was happening and that it could add to the feeling of a duel. So, for example, instead of a life bar, we added the blood spurts for players with one hit already. This way they know they are about to die for any strike, they have to be careful.
Any character idea you haven't been able to carry out? Danilo: Coming from my experience in One Strike, one of the things I learned for games with one or two hits is that ranged characters are incredibly complicated to balance, but even this limitation got solved with some ingenuity, making them release projectiles that don't cover the whole screen, like Goemon.
How have you tied the gameplay of the characters to themselves? Danilo: This is a difficult process. Designing a character and implementing it to be able to make it feel right with his movement set and what he offers to the players is probably the biggest challenge that designing a fighting game has to offer. My biggest struggle was definitely with Yasuke. I ended up designing him to be a very defensive character, so his move set followed that. The problem was that he was bigger and stronger than most characters, why would he be holding back on his brute force if he could overpower the others? That's when I decided to use some discarded animations to make his gameplay very aggressive and change his special ability to be a parry breaker.
Why new characters compared to One Strike? Danilo: Because I wanted our lead artist to have more freedom with the designs especially because One Strike designs aren’t the best, I created them and I'm no artist. I just asked him for a version of Kenji and Tomoe, my favourite characters from the first game.
And tell us, are the fighting stages based on real places? Danilo: Some places are. Kenji's scenario has Mount Fuji in the background. Ayai's scenario is also a reference to an old Ainu village. There are many more, but you have to play the story mode to discover, hehe.
What are the main references for the stages? Danilo: The biggest references are definitely old samurai movie posters. If you look closer, they even have some old marks, like they are old.
And finally, let’s talk a little about the music! Tell us, what are the main musical references? Danilo: The sound designer Benimaru used especially an instrument called the Sakuhashi to create a unique sound "pallet" for the game. It is delicate but can also be powerful and exciting. Quite perfect for the game. I didn't really have a specific source. When we initially started, Benimaru, Gerson, and I chatted heavily about the styles of Samurai Champloo, Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill's composer), and Sekiro. I suppose those formed a basis.
Well as always, thank you very much, Danilo for answering all our inquiries, and thank you very much to all of you who have read up to here. Make sure to follow us on our social networks (@EntaltoStudios and @dmbarbosa1) to stay updated on all the news related to Two Strikes, and see you in the next installment of Road to Release: The DevLog Series; Part 4 – Born to Fight!
Hey hey Danilo, how’s it going? What do you say we skip the introductions this time and go straight for the jugular; Why did you base Two Strikes specifically in the Sengoku period? Danilo: The Sengoku period in Japan is one of the most convoluted periods in Japan's history. From the country's unification to the cradle of many legends like Goemon and Yasuke. Samurai still ruled and the common folks suffered under endless wars.
And where does the Shinigami Tournament come from? What is its motivation? Danilo: The Shinigami tournament is an idea from our lead artist, Gerson Oshiro. Big fan of Japanese darker artists and culture, he wanted to bring this to the game and his idea was to basically kill everybody in the game for that to happen. Even the characters from the first game. At the time I thought it was quite fitting and explained why they kept fighting even though they're being killed every 15 seconds. The Shinigami's motivation changed throughout the years. Initially started being just the cliché that was depicted in many manga and anime, from the god of death being bored and looking for some souls to torment, but nowadays is more about bringing more conflict and despair to not only the lives of the warriors in the tournament, but for all those that cross their paths.
Wow! And tell us, what are the references for the artistic style? Danilo: 7 Samurai is the ultimate reference, but Jojo's bizarre adventure and Darkerstalker are also great influences and to compliment all that, a little bit of Tarantino.
You mentioned that the Sengoku period gave birth to many legends, tell us, are the characters of Two Strikes based on real figures? Danilo: Yes, Goemon and Yasuke are the characters that were based on real historical figures in the Sengoku era. Of course, our lead artist created his own version of them, and we are crazy to tell their stories in the new mode we are working on at the moment.
What were the main references, both visual and playable, to land the message? Danilo: Since our main reference is movies, we wanted to keep the gameplay completely without UI. The main reason behind it is to keep the player involved in what they were seeing, a duel. In the movies, there's no life bar for Samurai 1 and Samurai 2. So, if we wanted to create a game that could succeed in creating a movie + game experience this has to be gone.
But of course, removing it and expecting players to simply accept it is difficult and confusing when talking about game design. So, to solve some of the issues, we added some visual cues to help the players understand every that was happening and that it could add to the feeling of a duel. So, for example, instead of a life bar, we added the blood spurts for players with one hit already. This way they know they are about to die for any strike, they have to be careful.
Any character idea you haven't been able to carry out? Danilo: Coming from my experience in One Strike, one of the things I learned for games with one or two hits is that ranged characters are incredibly complicated to balance, but even this limitation got solved with some ingenuity, making them release projectiles that don't cover the whole screen, like Goemon.
How have you tied the gameplay of the characters to themselves? Danilo: This is a difficult process. Designing a character and implementing it to be able to make it feel right with his movement set and what he offers to the players is probably the biggest challenge that designing a fighting game has to offer. My biggest struggle was definitely with Yasuke. I ended up designing him to be a very defensive character, so his move set followed that. The problem was that he was bigger and stronger than most characters, why would he be holding back on his brute force if he could overpower the others? That's when I decided to use some discarded animations to make his gameplay very aggressive and change his special ability to be a parry breaker.
Why new characters compared to One Strike? Danilo: Because I wanted our lead artist to have more freedom with the designs especially because One Strike designs aren’t the best, I created them and I'm no artist. I just asked him for a version of Kenji and Tomoe, my favourite characters from the first game.
And tell us, are the fighting stages based on real places? Danilo: Some places are. Kenji's scenario has Mount Fuji in the background. Ayai's scenario is also a reference to an old Ainu village. There are many more, but you have to play the story mode to discover, hehe.
What are the main references for the stages? Danilo: The biggest references are definitely old samurai movie posters. If you look closer, they even have some old marks, like they are old.
And finally, let’s talk a little about the music! Tell us, what are the main musical references? Danilo: The sound designer Benimaru used especially an instrument called the Sakuhashi to create a unique sound "pallet" for the game. It is delicate but can also be powerful and exciting. Quite perfect for the game. I didn't really have a specific source. When we initially started, Benimaru, Gerson, and I chatted heavily about the styles of Samurai Champloo, Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill's composer), and Sekiro. I suppose those formed a basis.
Well as always, thank you very much, Danilo for answering all our inquiries, and thank you very much to all of you who have read up to here. Make sure to follow us on our social networks (@EntaltoStudios and @dmbarbosa1) to stay updated on all the news related to Two Strikes, and see you in the next installment of Road to Release: The DevLog Series; Part 4 – Born to Fight!