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Psxphile · Dec 2, 2015

http://www.themarysue.com/interview-with-shantae-co-creator-matt-bozon/

Interesting interview with the head of WayFoward, Matt Bozon about the little-Genie-that-could and her role in the industry past, present and future:

On mascot characters in gaming:

Matt Bozon: When I think of video game mascots, I usually think of characters whose designs are based on their gameplay. Sonic runs and rolls into a pointy destructive ball. Crash Bandicoot spins into a tornado. Mario is a blocky all-purpose shape that stomps or pounds. Shantae is just a whip or a yo-yo headed character. Id argue that like those other characters, her look in the beginning was less important than her function. But with a lot of mascots, time passes, and the character comes to represent either a certain kind of gameplay, or a promise of a certain quality bar. These days, I dont think game companies are as likely to rally behind a mascot and declare, We are this, take it or leave it! or at least I dont see it as often. Lately, I see companies being shaped by the industry around them and how buyers respond to their products. Its a more reactionary, less visionary approach. I dont believe that every company needs a video game mascot, but I do think there is a stronger bond between companies and fans when they do have them.

On what inspired Shantae:

Matt: Definitely. Castlevania, Mega Man, and Zelda inspired her gameplay. But Erin, who designed the character in the early 90s, was inspired by I Dream of Jeanie. The poses, dance sequences, and hair flip when performing magic had something to do with it. We were at CalArts at the time, and a lot of us were also discovering shows from Japan like Nadia, Ranma ½, and the films of Hayao Miyazaki which were not well known in the US back then. Many of these shows featured female lead characters, and it seemed natural that gaming could stand to have another female mascot in addition to Alisia Dragoon, the Guardian Legend, and Athena! So, there was a lot happening in the world of entertainment, and Shantae was a product of many inspirations!

Pirate's Curse-related trivia:

TMS: The girls Shantae meets at Saliva Island in Pirates Curse are never named in-game. However, theyve since become known as Twitch and Vinegar outside of the game. Are those now their official names, and if so, were those always their planned names?

Matt: Yes, those are the official names. There is a line I accidentally omitted when editing dialogue, where the Ammo Baron introduces them by name. I was going for a very G1 Transformers character intro, ha ha. But I must have broken the text somehow just before the game went live. The planned name was always Twitch. Its a long story, but Twitch is actually the original Sky design from back in the 90s. For the first game I changed her design a bit, and later changed the name Twitch into Sky. Many years later for Pirates Curse I decided to bring Twitch back. But I split her into two characters Twitch and Vinegar. So in some alternate reality, Shantaes best friend is actually Twitch. Weird huh?

On what makes Shantae who she is:

Matt: Shantae was created by my wife, and it began when I asked her what she would make given the opportunity to design a video game character. We were just making conversation. She disappeared, and I found her later working on drawings of Shantae in dance poses and hair whip poses. I asked her a bunch of questions about the character, what was going on in the drawings, what the game might play like. I suppose it matters that I didnt create Shantae, I was introduced to her, and that makes her feel very real. I developed the cast and world around the character to create a contrast as though Erins character is trapped in a world of my weird humor and imagination. Shantaes personality has developed a lot since then, but shes still the same in many ways sweet, innocent, willful, and also fallible.

On industry bias:

TMS: Lastly for the topic of Shantae as a woman: you told Girl Gamer you had many, many battles early on and lost with publishers wanting a male lead instead. What reasons did publishers give for wanting that change? And why was it so important to WayForward to stand by your girl Shantae?

Matt: The most common reaction to Shantae back in the 90s was Hey, great looking game. But who do the guys play as? Like, we must have messed up and put the Player 2 character in the Player 1 spot. It felt like our work was being dismissed for no good reason, and it made no sense to me. But eventually I came to understand that these people genuinely knew their markets, and that the game would probably not sell, and that was even more irritating. So, I feel like Shantae had to exist, even if it was just to reach out and see if there was an audience reaching back.

What to expect from Half-Genie Hero:

TMS: Finally, with the Shantae series picking up so much steam lately, I had a few questions about the belly dancers future:

Im sure you want to keep Half-Genie Hero pretty hush-hush for major announcements, but can you say anything about what players could expect story-wise? Theres been the mystery about Shantaes parents for a while now. Are we going to learn any more about her history or childhood?

Matt: The storyline of Half-Genie Hero touches on this a little bit. But I want to keep some questions unanswered, because they are important motivators for Shantaes character. I think her mother would be developed as a character before her father would be.

And finally, because there's no way it'll go unmentioned:

TMS: Speaking of DLC, Im sure you were happy seeing so many people who want Shantae as DLC for Super Smash Bros. If #ShantaeForSmash wins the Smash ballot, or youre approached about her being included regardless, could she really be in the game? If so, how do you picture her Final Smash attack?

Matt: Im really excited about Shantae being a possibility for Smash! How cool would that be? Amazing, right? I think stylistically shed be a good fit, being something that exists somewhere between Mega Man and Peach. Id hope she could recover in Harpy form, or maybe pull off some incredible dance and transformation for her Final Smash! I would love to see this happen, and if not now, then some time in the future!

More at the link!

Haines · Dec 2, 2015

Am I dumb? I remember a bozon from ign Nintendo or?

Aeana · Dec 2, 2015

Haines said:
Am I dumb? I remember a bozon from ign Nintendo or?

That's his brother, Mark Bozon.

Rich! · Dec 2, 2015

Aeana said:
That's his brother, Mark Bozon.

Damn. All this time I honestly thought it was him.

Elixist · Dec 2, 2015

Cool stuff. Glad they could persevere thru tough times having a female lead. I'm looking forward to the new game looks great so far.

Oni Link 666 · Dec 2, 2015

How much longer until Half Genie Hero comes out? A year?

GaussTek · Dec 2, 2015

I really thought Shantae was mostly inspired in the Monster World series, specially from Monster World IV (for the character design) and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (the transformations,etc.), not to mention that, gameplay wise, they are almost the same.

So, a bit surprised it wasn't mentioned.

foxuzamaki · Dec 2, 2015

I feel ShanTae has a real Han e of being in smash

firehawk12 · Dec 2, 2015

Oni Link 666 said:
How much longer until Half Genie Hero comes out? A year?

I forgot I paid for this. lol

Grisby · Dec 2, 2015

Didn't know his wife had such a hand in her creation. Very cool.

Robert at Zeboyd Games · Dec 2, 2015

firehawk12 said:
I forgot I paid for this. lol

What's really confusing is that the Kickstarter said the game was scheduled to come out in 2014 and then they released a completely different Shantae game that same year. I remember thinking "Cool, the Shantae game is getting good reviews! Can't wait to play my copy" and then being surprised when I realized it was a different game.

firehawk12 · Dec 2, 2015

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
What's really confusing is that the Kickstarter said the game was scheduled to come out in 2014 and then they released a completely different Shantae game that same year. I remember thinking "Cool, the Shantae game is getting good reviews! Can't wait to play my copy" and then being surprised when I realized it was a different game.

Yeah, that confused me as well. I didn't realize until later that was a remake/port/whatchamacallit.

Oni Link 666 · Dec 2, 2015

GaussTek said:
I really thought Shantae was mostly inspired in the Monster World series, specially from Monster World IV (for the character design) and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (the transformations,etc.), not to mention that, gameplay wise, they are almost the same.

So, a bit surprised it wasn't mentioned.

Bozon is an American and grew up with NES games like Zelda and Castlevania. I don't think it should surprise anyone that he didn't play MWIV until it came out on PSN, considering it was never released in the US. It's not like MWIV was the first game of its kind either. Zelda II, Castlevania II, and Metroid all did the non-linear action platformer thing before it.

twothunder · Dec 2, 2015

TMS: The girls Shantae meets at Saliva Island in Pirates Curse are never named in-game. However, they’ve since become known as Twitch and Vinegar outside of the game. Are those now their official names, and if so, were those always their planned names?

Matt: Yes, those are the official names. There is a line I accidentally omitted when editing dialogue, where the Ammo Baron introduces them by name. I was going for a very G1 Transformers character intro, ha ha. But I must have broken the text somehow just before the game went live.

So he messed up. Seeing two recurring characters in the game stay nameless was always kinda weird to me. So this is why.
A shame though. Perhaps he should of added that back with the patch they did just after release.. Still. Nice to see their names confirmed by Matt Bozon himself.

The planned name was always “Twitch”. It’s a long story, but Twitch is actually the original “Sky” design from back in the ’90s. For the first game I changed her design a bit, and later changed the name Twitch into Sky. Many years later for Pirate’s Curse I decided to bring Twitch back. But I split her into two characters – Twitch and Vinegar. So in some alternate reality, Shantae’s best friend is actually Twitch. Weird huh?

Interesting trivia. So Twitch is an older version of Sky and got split into Twitch and Vinegar AKA these girls.

http://shantae.wikia.com/wiki/Twitch_&_Vinegar

Watch Twitch have some rivalry with Sky in HGH.

TMS: Lastly for the topic of Shantae as a woman: you told Girl Gamer you had “many, many battles early on and lost” with publishers wanting a male lead instead. What reasons did publishers give for wanting that change? And why was it so important to WayForward to stand by your girl Shantae?

Matt: The most common reaction to Shantae back in the ’90s was “Hey, great looking game. But who do the guys play as?” Like, we must have messed up and put the “Player 2” character in the “Player 1” spot. It felt like our work was being dismissed for no good reason, and it made no sense to me. But eventually I came to understand that these people genuinely knew their markets, and that the game would probably not sell, and that was even more irritating. So, I feel like Shantae had to exist, even if it was just to reach out and see if there was an audience reaching back.

Considering Shantae GBA never got a publisher. They payed the price for it.
Good they stuck with Shantae though.

TMS: Following up on that: there’s going to be another genie in Half-Genie Hero…any chance of us seeing a dance off?

Matt: Well… I don’t think the rival genie will be a dancer, per se. But there is a Backer Enemy that has something to do with dancing. We’ll be putting the finishing touches on that character soon… it should be a lot of fun and we can’t wait to show it off!

So the last backer enemy is dance related. Next update probably.

TMS: Finally, with the Shantae series picking up so much steam lately, I had a few questions about the belly dancer’s future:

I’m sure you want to keep Half-Genie Hero pretty hush-hush for major announcements, but can you say anything about what players could expect story-wise? There’s been the mystery about Shantae’s parents for a while now. Are we going to learn any more about her history or childhood?

Matt: The storyline of Half-Genie Hero touches on this a little bit. But I want to keep some questions unanswered, because they are important motivators for Shantae’s character. I think her mother would be developed as a character before her father would be.

Wants to keep things open somewhat. That's fine. We'll see in HGH how far they go with it.

Psxphile · Dec 2, 2015

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
What's really confusing is that the Kickstarter said the game was scheduled to come out in 2014 and then they released a completely different Shantae game that same year. I remember thinking "Cool, the Shantae game is getting good reviews! Can't wait to play my copy" and then being surprised when I realized it was a different game.

Well, delays happen. Also, I'm sure you're well aware that the original release date would have been impossible to meet due to some of stretch goals being met and expanding the game's content, in some ways significantly.

GaussTek · Dec 2, 2015

Oni Link 666 said:
Bozon is an American and grew up with NES games like Zelda and Castlevania. I don't think it should surprise anyone that he didn't play MWIV until it came out on PSN, considering it was never released in the US. It's not like MWIV was the first game of its kind either. Zelda II, Castlevania II, and Metroid all did the non-linear action platformer thing before it.

You are right, although he does mention japanese things that weren't well known in the US back then, like the Miyazaki films and other stuff. He also mentions Alisia Dragoon, which was on Mega Drive, so, it wouldn't be surprising that he already knew about it. Now, keep in mind that I'm not saying he could have taken inspiration from MW IV alone but from MW as a whole, which was known here in the west as Wonder Boy.

Anyway, not saying that he did, just mentioned that I was surprised it wasn't an inspiration at all because of how similar the series are.

OrbitalBeard · Dec 2, 2015

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
What's really confusing is that the Kickstarter said the game was scheduled to come out in 2014 and then they released a completely different Shantae game that same year. I remember thinking "Cool, the Shantae game is getting good reviews! Can't wait to play my copy" and then being surprised when I realized it was a different game.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse was in development long before the KS. It definitely confused a lot of people.

firehawk12 said:
Yeah, that confused me as well. I didn't realize until later that was a remake/port/whatchamacallit.

The Pirate's Curse isn't a remake at all. It's a direct sequel to Shantae: Risky's Revenge. It's also tied with Contra 4 as the best thing WayForward has ever made. It just barely edges out Double Dragon Neon for me.

Psxphile · Dec 2, 2015

GaussTek said:
You are right, although he does mention japanese things that weren't well known in the US back then, like the Miyazaki films and other stuff. He also mentions Alisia Dragoon, which was on Mega Drive, so, it wouldn't be surprising that he already knew about it. Now, keep in mind that I'm not saying he only took inspiration from MW IV alone but from MW as a whole, which was known here in the west as Wonder Boy.

Anyway, not saying that he did, just mentioned that I was surprised it wasn't an inspiration at all because of how similar the series are.

Alisia Dragoon was released in North America, not sure what you mean by singling out Mega Drive.

firehawk12 · Dec 2, 2015

OrbitalBeard said:
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse was in development long before the KS. It definitely confused a lot of people.

The Pirate's Curse isn't a remake at all. It's a direct sequel to Shantae: Risky's Revenge. It's also tied with Contra 4 as the best thing WayForward has ever made. It just barely edges out Double Dragon Neon for me.

Oh... wait, so they already had a game that was in development and paid for and were asking money for the next game?

Psxphile · Dec 2, 2015

firehawk12 said:
Oh... wait, so they already had a game that was in development and paid for and were asking money for the next game?

Yeah, this question came up a lot when the kickstarter was announced. Not sure what the official response to that was.

SpiceMelange · Dec 2, 2015

firehawk12 said:
Oh... wait, so they already had a game that was in development and paid for and were asking money for the next game?

What, you think you start planning your next game once the previous hit the shelves?

OrbitalBeard · Dec 2, 2015

firehawk12 said:
Oh... wait, so they already had a game that was in development and paid for and were asking money for the next game?

It was definitely a point of contention during the KS. Half Genie Hero is a big, multiplatform game, whereas The Pirate's Curse was initially only a 3DS eShop title. Make of that as you will. I personally don't see the issue, as The Pirate's Curse had been announced for some time already and they were open about it. Plus, devs need to plan for these things well in advance. There's usually a lot of overlap between multiple projects.

I think the issue now is that this damn game is taking forever to actually get finished, which is frustrating....but at the same time, if it makes a better product, it's worth it in the end.

GaussTek · Dec 2, 2015

Psxphile said:
Alisia Dragoon was released in North America, not sure what you mean by singling out Mega Drive.

I know, I meant to say that he could have known about the series as a whole, which were on Sega systems and also had releases over here.

But yeah, I get your point guys, just keep moving

wingedarcher7 · Dec 2, 2015

Huh, funny. I was just looking at the Shantae games on the eShop since people have been getting Risky's Revenge from the GOG mystery game thing that's going on. This is a series I really want to get into playing sometime. It looks great and like lots of fun, not to mention it really seems filled with charm. I look forward to checking it out and the game in progress when that comes around too.

I would also love to have Shantae in Smash, so I'm absolutely rooting for her.

@MUWANdo · Dec 2, 2015

Oni Link 666 said:
How much longer until Half Genie Hero comes out? A year?

They're very close to being done and I think there's still a chance the PC version will be out late this year.

GaussTek said:
I really thought Shantae was mostly inspired in the Monster World series, specially from Monster World IV (for the character design) and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (the transformations,etc.), not to mention that, gameplay wise, they are almost the same.

So, a bit surprised it wasn't mentioned.

He apparently knew nothing about the series until after the first game was released and people kept mentioning it in reference to Shantae.

If you look at footage from Shantae GBA, you can see a bunch of placeholder background tiles ripped straight from MW4...

firehawk12 said:
Oh... wait, so they already had a game that was in development and paid for and were asking money for the next game?

"In development", yes, "paid for", no; the previous three games were basically made during off-hours or whenever they were between projects, so they never had a proper budget/schedule and always took forever to make.

The Half-Genie Hero KS was primarily about allowing them to assemble a proper team and commit to working on it full-time like a normal game, rather than the usual process of "work on it for a few hours every month, release in 2021".

firehawk12 · Dec 2, 2015

Ah, fair enough! Thanks for clearing it up. I honestly didn't pay too much attention other than "Shantae give me money" which I did willingly, so I was just surprised that the game that came out wasn't the one that they Kickstarted. lol

Robert at Zeboyd Games · Dec 2, 2015

Psxphile said:
Well, delays happen. Also, I'm sure you're well aware that the original release date would have been impossible to meet due to some of stretch goals being met and expanding the game's content, in some ways significantly.

Oh, I'm not mad at them, it was just confusing to have another game in the same series come out at around the time that I thought the KS game was going to come out.

VariantX · Dec 2, 2015

firehawk12 said:
I forgot I paid for this. lol

I totally forgot myself up until I got a email from their kickstarter talking about shantae's inclusion into indivisible.

twothunder · Dec 3, 2015

firehawk12 said:
Ah, fair enough! Thanks for clearing it up. I honestly didn't pay too much attention other than "Shantae give me money" which I did willingly, so I was just surprised that the game that came out wasn't the one that they Kickstarted. lol

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
Oh, I'm not mad at them, it was just confusing to have another game in the same series come out at around the time that I thought the KS game was going to come out.

Pirate's Curse had quite a few delays.
Resulting in it coming out end last year and causing some confusion.
You guys are not the only ones that confused the two.

JediLink · Dec 3, 2015

Id hope she could recover in Harpy form

But, she can't transform in mid-air, Matt Bozon! (Or should I say Bozo?) How are you supposed to dance while you're falling? Do you even play your own games?

Psxphile · Dec 4, 2015

Jedi Link said:
But, she can't transform in mid-air, Matt Bozon! (Or should I say Bozo?) How are you supposed to dance while you're falling? Do you even play your own games?

How does Sonic's UP+B summon a convenient spring where there wasn't one before? Some concessions have to be made for the sake of gameplay in Smash.

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