As you may know from my previous blog post, my friend @aapiarts released his game, Painter Blazer, a few days ago. It's an arcade-like platformer about a rabbit with a paintbrush, where you must paint all of the targets in each level to progress.

Yesterday, I had the idea to interview Aapi, as well as some of the other people who worked on and playtested the game, about its development and the inspirations and challenges they had along the way. I wanted to try my hand at interviewing after seeing others on Newgrounds do the same, and I think it turned out quite alright! If you've played the game and are curious for some insight into its development, look no further!

If you haven't played the game... well, if arcade platformers sound like your thing, why not give it a whirl?

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Featuring:

Aapi (@aapiarts): Lead developer

Neb (@Nebulate): Additional character designer + voice actor for Blaster

Layla (@GGishere): Voice actor for Blazer

Rob (@wobwobrob): Composer

Cryptid (@LowresCryptid): Playtester

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Q: So, how did you get the idea to make a game in the first place?

Aapi: I mainly just wanted to try out if I could make a game. I've always liked to play around with level editors in games and had a lot of fun with Nintendo's Game Builder Garage. Newgrounds being a place where I can submit a game was also a huge part of why I wanted to make a game.

Q: Why the arcade-like platformer genre specifically?

Aapi: I like that genre but also because those games are generally simplistic and levels can be small but difficult. The genre comes up with a gameplay loop and then mainly adds level gimmicks to change things up here and there.

Q: One of the main selling points of the game is its cartoony aesthetic. What made you want to go with this aesthetic in particular?

Aapi: I like cartoons obviously. I also like it when cartoons have text pop up during actions and wanted to add that to the game's effects.

Q: Specifically, how did you come up with the story of a rabbit with a paintbrush?

Aapi: I thought about characters I liked which a handful happened to be bunnies/rabbits and I had played De Blob 2 on the Nintendo DS recently and I liked the paint theme in it so instead of a sword or a gun or any other basic weapon I thought a big paintbrush was a fun idea for a weapon.

Q: Was this your first time designing video game levels? And if so, did you find it challenging?

Aapi: Like I said before I love level editors in games so no. I've made a bunch of levels in games like Super Mario Maker 2, Secret Neighbor, Super Smash Bros Ultimate and so on. If a game has a level editor I will mess with it. I feel like that gave me a hand in already having some kind of idea how to make fair yet challenging levels.

Q: How about animating all of the sprites? How did you find the process, and what sort of look did you want to get out of each animation?

Aapi: I have had some experience with sprites/pixel art before and my main goal was to just make sprites that are clear and look good. Though Piskel being kind of not good and crashing randomly did make the process slower and more tedious than if I would have made them in Aseprite. Too bad I got Aseprite only some months ago.

Q: How did you decide on the JKL control scheme of the game?

Aapi: The control scheme has been the biggest "controversy" in the game. It is completely my own preference how I mapped it. Think about the NES controller, D-pad on left hand and action buttons on the right hand, I'm very used to that. So arrow keys and and ZXC just don't feel good to me, I have to cross my arms so I can use it better. If I'm not miss remembering games like Antonball Deluxe and Alien Xenoblaster (two huge inspirations) use a similar WASD orianted control scheme. Also also @LowresCryptid said to use that scheme instead of the weird WASD, space and KL buttons I used at the very start.

Q: Tell us about how you created the sound effects for the game.

Aapi: JFXR. That's it. It's useable on a web browser and was also built in to GDevelop 5. It is a rather simple pixel sound effect creator and I just did everything (except @GGishere's voicelines) in that.

Q: What made you pick GDevelop as your game engine of choice?

Aapi: The ease of learning it, feel of it and it is free. I did try out Game Maker Studio 2 but it did not click with me at all and the exports were paid in it back then. In the future I want to give GMS2 a new try though. Or maybe I'll try Godot. GDevelop is a great beginner engine in my eyes.

Q: Overall, what was the biggest challenge you faced during the game's development?

Aapi: Managing the workload and having a rather constant flow of progress. I wanted to work on it almost daily and honestly the size for a first game was maybe a little too much but it was very fun. Nothing was too challenging yet nothing was too easy.

Q: Was there anything from your other game, Twigi's Twisted Costumes, that influenced the development of Blazer?

Aapi: Maybe I learned something new about GDevelop 5 while I was doing it but honestly can't say. I did use it as an excuse to take a break from Painter Blazer which was worth it.

Q: What inspired you to release the April Fools' demo version of the game?

Aapi: The people who kept asking for a demo. Especially that one blue cube head, you know who you are. But also I wanted to do something stupid with it and wanted to have something for April Fools so I made a bad unfair version of the game with a gun.

Q: Were you nervous revealing/releasing the game to the public for the first time?

Aapi: Revealing I wasn't but releasing yes I was. All the "what if it breaks? What if it's not good? What if it doesn't get to the portal?" type of questions were floating in my head even though I knew worse games are out there.

Q: What were your biggest inspirations when designing the characters of the game?

Aapi: Old arcade game character and the enemies in them and Super Mario. There were many other inspirations too but those were stylistically the main inspirations. Simple yet memorable and clear to read what the character is and what it possibly does. Simple also so animating and turning them in to sprites wouldn't be a pain.

Neb: When it comes to my inspirations for enemy designs i thought of more arcade type enemies.

Blaster was created as a joke. I just wanted to claim having the first Blazer OC by creating a bad joke drawing. Later i redesigned them and game a dumb backstory that summerized Blaster as Blazer's classmate that hated him cuz Blazer got better grades in art class then them. I reely wanted to go for like a counterpart type character many game protagonists has, examples are Gray Kid from Underhero, Black Knight from Shovel Knight and Baddeline from Celeste.

Bucket Boi was inspired design vise by the Mini Mitt from Antonball. I also just liked the idea of an enemy that remooved your progress by washing it away. Name was just a placeholder name that just stuck. Personalaty vise with his hatred of paint, i was inspired by Fanny from BFDI with the hateful personalaty shtick Bucket has.

Nuke was inspired by the Albatoss from SMB2. I had like an idea for an enemy that woud drop another enemy and then dive down in an arc to the ground and explode. This is of cource extreamaly complex for programing so aapi resonably just made him just dive when Blazer was under him. The original consept was was just a bird with a dynamite belt strapped on it (thank god aapi redesigned it). Nuke is directly named after what i thought the name of the kirby enemy Bomber was called. Personality vise i just imagine him as a bird that always zones out and screams at rantom times.

Q: Neb, you helped Aapi design some of the enemies featured in the game. How did you end up working on the game, and are you happy with the work you did for it?

Neb: I made drawing of Blaster. The drawing is a joke, i just wanted to be they guy that coud claim to have the first Blazer OC. then aapi DMed me that he wanted to add them to the game. I refined their design and whatnot. I pitched Bucket Boi and Nuke and they got into the game and thats good. Aapi asked me to redesign Haunty to look less like a Pac-Man ghost. Even Canman, the dumbfuck joke character i made for April Fools last year made it into the game lol. I made a few voice recordings for fun and one line got into the game so thats cool. Overall i am happy that i am involved with the project and it was fun to help Aapi with his funny project.

Q: Layla, you were the individual responsible for the various grunts and noises emanated by Blazer over the course of the game. How did you find out about the game, and what made you want to apply for the role?

Layla: It was the funniest thing, it was actually how i met aapi! I was browsing newgrounds as usual and saw that he had put a call for voice actors in the “[User] sez:” section at the bottom of the front page. I’d always wanted to be a voice actor, so i contacted him about it and things went from there

Q: Did you have fun recording your lines?

Layla: I’d say so. i really couldn’t do more then make noises into my headset mic, but it was fun figuring out how to keep consistency between the goofy noises of blazer and put fun twists on them depending on the context

Q: Rob, you were responsible for the game's music. How did you end up working with Aapi?

Rob: Sometime ago I put a post our saying I was ready to compose for games and Aapi got in touch directly. We clicked and the rest is history!

Q: What were your biggest inspirations when composing the music of the game?

Rob: I was inspired by SNES and Megadrive era zany games. Things like Toejam & Earl

Q: What was the biggest issue you found during playtesting of the early betas?

Neb: While i woudnt call myself a "playtester" i did get an early SAGE build called the "Nebulate Build". I got it to record a letsplay that was reely botched. Like REELY botched. The main two things i found an issiue was the top right platform in 2-1 was a bit too high up and it felt compleataly random if i'd manage to get to it. And the top ladders in the Spyker boss was too short. I thought Blazer coudnt climb on them so its good that aapi made those ladders longer.

Layla: i was not a playtester, although i was annoyed that the funny ending dialogue i recorded for the april fools demo didn’t play at first

Cryptid: In terms of issues it was more of me just pointing things out that worked but where rough and could be smoother, overall what's in the first section of the game is pretty much identical to what was in the early builds I played, with the rough spots smoothed out, for example: the attack animation used to be slower, an almost delayed like feeling, which led to more deaths than I would like to admit. But now in the final game it feels like the right speed for attacks. Oh and enemies could hit you when they where still traveling in pipes in one version i played, good thing we saw that when we did.

Q: What is your favourite thing about the game?

Aapi: Everything to be honest. I can't point out just one thing. But I do seem to like the characters more than anything in it.

Neb: It has to see how my character was implemented in the game. I everyone was reely well implemented. But i especialy loved how Pip and Canman was implemented. I rember aapi DMing me some wierd cryptic stuff about Pip and that was a hint on how Pip was gonna be implemented in the game and it was cool. Canman was also somthing i was genuinely suprised to see cuz he was just a joke character. Yeah seeing both of them ingame was for shure the best part in Painter Blazer for me.

Layla: definitely the graphics. i can’t believe aapi did all of this himself, he really has a drive as an artist i wish i had half of

Rob: I love the main character and I love the challenge!

Cryptid: Honestly my favorite part is what the game got it's roots from, a combination of arcade mario bros (which I've sunk more time into than any sane person would admit) and wrecking crew, which at least in my experience I really don't see any games taking inspiration from which is a shame since wrecking crew is an enjoyable game especially from the time it released, being when most early nes/famicom games took a more arcady route.

Q: Are you satisfied with what you have made? Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Aapi: Yeah I am satisfied. I would maybe do the story differently to be more interesting but I didn't want that to be the main focus in the game nor during development so it's more so a reason for stuff to happen and Blazer to do in the game.

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If you've made it this far, thanks for reading my very first interview! I'd like to give a massive thank you to the people above for replying to my questions; it was fun reading everyone's answers!

-Glitch [ I - ]