Umaiki Games AMA Transcript

Last night’s AMA with Umaiki Games, developers of Skellboy, was a great time! We appreciate everyone, especially the developers, for taking the time to make this AMA a success. In case you missed it, a transcript of the entire event can be found below. This information can also be found on our Discord.

Note: Users in red signify our staff, while users in blue indicate comments from Umaiki devs:

Rich at 9:03 AM
2 Hrs!!!!

Rich at 10:27 AM
30 MINS!!!

Rich at 10:42 AM
Thank you all for that are joining us today. We are all very happy to have Umaiki Games join us. We want everyone be to be able to ask a question. Please be respectful and allow them to answer questions.
Rich pinned a message to this channel. See all the pins. at 10:42 AM

Rich at 10:44 AM
15 Mins

Din at 10:45 AM
I seen they were on reddit the other day doing an AM A too

Sabaku at 10:48 AM
!!!
Yeah, that was practice for today :smirk:

csg at 10:53 AM
:wave: Please don’t ask me about my favorite Final fantasy :sweat_drops:

Bjoern Means Bear at 10:54 AM
Yes, ask ME that stuff instead! :muscle:

Rich at 10:54 AM
:wave:

Sabaku at 10:57 AM
Thank you very much Rich for inviting us!!

TheNerdBasement at 10:57 AM
Woohoo

Rich at 10:57 AM
Thanks @Sabaku, @csg & @Bjoern Means Bear for joining us today

Bjoern Means Bear at 10:57 AM
Thanks for having us!

csg at 10:58 AM
Yeah, thanks a lot!

Rich at 10:59 AM
so our traditional first question, for @TheNerdBasement is Zelda BOTW an RPG?

TheNerdBasement at 10:59 AM
You’re damn right

csg at 11:00 AM
Oh my god

Sabaku at 11:01 AM
It’s an action rpg with rpg elements!!!

TheNerdBasement at 11:01 AM
@Sabaku you’ve disappointed me

Mike (Trifragger) at 11:02 AM
I’ve mentioned this on Twitter a bit but I’ll rephrase a bit differently here.

From the mind of a developer, what design considerations did you all have to work through on that depth of field effect.

Sure it has to look good but what else?

Rich at 11:03 AM
what games did you pull inspiration from while making skellboy?

csg at 11:04 AM
@Mike (Trifragger) Mostly because it gave the game more like a look of a smaller scale. You know these toy books and diaromas? We wanted everything to look cute and compact, so the depth of field helped a lot there!

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:05 AM
@Rich In terms of inspiration, we took a definite inspiration from Dark Souls’s interconnected world map, which Skellboy also has.
The soundtrack was inspired by Banjo-Kazooie in terms of style and feel and Super Mario Land 2 in terms of reusing a main melody and mixing it into different styles.

Rich at 11:06 AM
interesting, since after playing it, i feel it is paper-zelda-metroid

csg at 11:06 AM
No paper-zelda-metroid-souls!? :sob:

Mike (Trifragger) at 11:07 AM
That must be an rpg then….

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:07 AM
The Metroid aspect more or less just…happened 🙂

TheNerdBasement at 11:08 AM
Was Skellboy always going to be what the final product was or were there any changes along the way?

Nerd House at 11:08 AM
Lurking questions and replies :eyes:

Rich at 11:09 AM
what influenced the decision to go with the voxel or “paper mario” look?

TheNerdBasement at 11:09 AM
@Nerd House c’mon u gotta ask something

Schotti at 11:09 AM
What is csg’s favorite Final Fantasy?

Rich at 11:09 AM
better be 6

Nerd House at 11:10 AM
I’ve litte knowledge about the game overall, I wouldn’t know what to ask
Well
This is perfect then.

As someone who doesn’t know what the game is or what it’s about….sell it to me. Why would I want to play it?

TheNerdBasement at 11:10 AM
Perfect

Sabaku at 11:11 AM
So a really long time ago, when Skellboy wasn’t Skellboy I had the idea building a game world based on the very simple square figures. I just wanted to do an open World with talking characters, fighting monsters and changing gear in various ways. This was a rpg maker project and that editor is definitely not well equipped for action battle or grand scale open worlds, especially if you a re not a programmer. At that point the idea had the Working Title “Cubold” but when Chris and I started working together we made the jump from a very barebones selfmade enginge to Unity and then we started “Skellboy”, the idea of a square world with the graphics stayed but everything else changed drastically! @TheNerdBasement

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:13 AM
@Nerd House Everything’s alright in the Cubold Kingdom, until Squaruman, the court magician, got rejected by Princess Zoletta when he asked her out on a date.
So he got furious and to show her what he got he decided to resurrect the undead because that’s what cool people do.
Now the Kingdom is being overrun by Zombies and demons, Zoletta is missing and Squaruman also resurrected Skippy who had enough of being alive and wants to end this being alive thing for themselves.
So they set out on a quest to defeat Squaruman by swapping out body parts and save the Kingdom while they’re at it.

csg at 11:14 AM
@Schotti It is indeed 8 and 6 on first place. But to be honest I’m loving all titles from 6 to 9 out of different reasons.

TheNerdBasement at 11:14 AM
@Sabaku really interesting
What games are you currently playing??

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:16 AM
Monster Hunter World, Hollow Knight, Dragon Quest 8, Fortnite and Beat Saber

csg at 11:16 AM
@TheNerdBasement Just finished the first campaign of Frostpunk, really adore that game! Wanna do something like that in the future 🙂

Sabaku at 11:16 AM
I’m diving deep into Breath of Fire 2, and if I don’t want to grind I’m playing Laytons Mystery Journey, both on Switch 🙂

Rich at 11:17 AM
Most anticipated game this year?

TheNerdBasement at 11:17 AM
@csg I just feel cold when watching that game

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:17 AM
FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE

csg at 11:17 AM
(Oh and I’m playing League of legends all the time, but I’m not proud about that)
@TheNerdBasement Yes, the game is so point on this feeling of cooldness it is superb!

bwillroku at 11:17 AM
@csg none of us are proud of our LoL addictions…

csg at 11:18 AM
@bwillroku :joy:

Sabaku at 11:18 AM
I’M waiting for Cyberpunk!

Nerd House at 11:18 AM
I dropped LoL at lv25 lol

NoahIvaldi at 11:18 AM
@Sabaku What do you think is the most obscure reference to another game in Skellboy?

Mike (Trifragger) at 11:18 AM
Developing games is a rough market and is only getting more diluted and difficult.

Is Umaiki doing anything outside of Skellboy to ensure that game development keeps going as a company?

(I’m seeing a pattern of sma developers all in on one title and it’s extremely risky with today’s competitive market)

csg at 11:18 AM
Most anticipated for me: Subnautica below zero

bwillroku at 11:19 AM
If you could recommend only ONE GAME to give someone an idea of the games you like to play, what would it be?

Sabaku at 11:20 AM
@NoahIvaldi It’s possible I dropped one or another Castlevania reference in there (my favorite Game Series!) and also you can probably make some connections to dark souls, in an hommage kinda way. But It’s probably won’t do much if I explain where they are so you can discover them for yourself :point_up:

Rich at 11:21 AM
How was it working with Nintendo and can you share anything about the process of getting your game shown in their nindies presentation

Evan_Bee at 11:21 AM
What inspired the body-part swapping mechanics? Was it informed by the character design or was it one of the foundations of the game? Or both? :smiley:

Nerd House at 11:21 AM
Since you mentioned Castlevania, this is a VERY important question @Sabaku ….

What is your favorite Castlevania song?

csg at 11:22 AM
@Mike (Trifragger) Not right now, no. Only one of us is depending on our success anyway right now, the rest got work and university as their main job. We also wanna try to support Skellboy for the next time, be it more plattforms (PC is comming for example) and content updates.

Sabaku at 11:22 AM
@bwillroku For me that’s Bloodstained! I felt so relieved when I played it and saw all the things I LOVE about the Castlevania series, but with own twists and a modern feel! Everything is so good! Cooking Best feature by the way

csg at 11:22 AM
But you are totally right that it is really hard right now.

TheNerdBasement at 11:22 AM
@Nerd House bloody Tears is the only right answer

NoahIvaldi at 11:23 AM
Okay, fair enough. Thanks.

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:23 AM
@bwillroku I guess that would be any of the IGA Castlevanias. Probably Symphony of the Night, I guess.

Sabaku at 11:23 AM
@Nerd House What kinda question is that

NoahIvaldi at 11:24 AM
The most important kind. :musical_note:

Rich at 11:24 AM
@Sabaku Bloodstained was great, i enjoyed it even in its launch state on switch, i need to go back and check it out, now that its been patched

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:24 AM
@Nerd House Bloody Tears and Vampire Killer, because I’m basic like that

Sabaku at 11:24 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU6961fLz0Q :V
YouTube
Francisco Relaño Peña
Castlevania (The Netflix Series) Season 2 OST – Bloody Tears

Nerd House at 11:24 AM
I’m a big fan of VGM, so music in a game is very important to me. You all chose a great one. I’m satisfied.

csg at 11:25 AM
How was it working with Nintendo and can you share anything about the process of getting your game shown in their nindies presentation

Working with nintendo is really fun as they are so supporting! We got the nindies presentation, a lot of coverage on release and so on. Almost all of this is done by our publisher Fabraz, so we can’t really give any more insights on that, sorry!

TheNerdBasement at 11:25 AM
@Sabaku that part in that series still gives me the chills

Sabaku at 11:25 AM
I probably jumped up and down a lot while watching

TheNerdBasement at 11:25 AM
Yep

Nerd House at 11:25 AM
This is my favorite remix of Bloody Tears. Starts off slow, but wait til about a minute in.

YouTube
Friedrich Habetler Music
Castlevania – Bloody Tears | Epic Rock Cover

TheNerdBasement at 11:26 AM
So many badass covers

Rich at 11:26 AM
you mentioned, only 1 of you is depending on skellboy’s success, so i AM going to assume this is a passion project for you? and how long has the game been in development?

TheNerdBasement at 11:28 AM
If you couldn’t develop for games, what is your other career path?

csg at 11:29 AM
@Rich Passion for sure! We started the prototype for a one month contest at the end of 2016. Then we kinda decided to make a full game out of it somewhere 2017, but full time development for me started like end of 2018 when we met fabraz. So I would say 2 1/2 years!

Mike (Trifragger) at 11:29 AM
Side hobbies?

I’m a part time photographer, do triathlons, grow lettuce in my basement, and write / record game reviews.

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:30 AM
@TheNerdBasement I still do have a full time job as a logistics…guy (sorry, don’t know the English name for the job :sweat_drops: ) so that would probably be my career path if everything else failed.

Mike (Trifragger) at 11:30 AM
Yes lettuce.

Sabaku at 11:30 AM
If you couldn’t develop for games, what is your other career path?
@TheNerdBasement
I would still do a job in the direction of Multimedia design, which is my field of education (I’M the one studying Interactive Media)

TheNerdBasement at 11:31 AM
@Mike (Trifragger) LETTUCE???

csg at 11:31 AM
@Mike (Trifragger) My side hobbies are playing pen and paper and programming in general. I’m also playing go! also writing, but stopped that for the time beeing because of work

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:31 AM
@Mike (Trifragger) Gaming, doing music, streaming games on Twitch. My whole life somehow revolves around video games in a way tbh :sweat_drops:

TheNerdBasement at 11:31 AM
@csg what p&p you playing?

Rich at 11:31 AM
@csg what languages do you program in?

Sabaku at 11:31 AM
Side hobbies?

I’m a part time photographer, do triathlons, grow lettuce in my basement, and write / record game reviews.
@Mike (Trifragger)
growing lettuce sounds exciting!

When I’M not doing Pixelart for Skellboy I’M a passionate traditional drawer (acrylic, ink), digital artist and do writing shortstorys on the side. I also like taking photos, but not in any way professional, haha

csg at 11:31 AM
I’m playing The Dark eye, a pen and paper really popular in germany! @TheNerdBasement

TheNerdBasement at 11:32 AM
Hmm…I’ll look at that one

Rich at 11:32 AM
have you guys thought about a physical release, maybe with limited run games?

csg at 11:33 AM
@Rich I’m programming since I was 10. I kinda used a lot of languages, mostly c/c++, Javascript and right now c# with unity!

Sabaku at 11:33 AM
@csg what p&p you playing?
@TheNerdBasement A friend and I sometimes play short cthulhu adventures!

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:33 AM
@Rich Yes, we thought about it. We’re still hopeful that it’ll happen some day :pray:

Sabaku at 11:34 AM
heavily dependent on how good the game competes

Rich at 11:34 AM
you mentioned other platforms(PC), did you guys personally handle the switch version

TheNerdBasement at 11:35 AM
What are some previous game titles or studio names you’ve worked with?

csg at 11:36 AM
you mentioned other platforms(PC), did you guys personally handle the switch version

Yes we did! It was a lot of fun, our first time developing for a console, too. Playing around with a dev kit, trying out the tools was really a nice learning experience.
What are some previous game titles or studio names you’ve worked with?

For me this is my first commercial title! But I’m doing gamedev for a long time now, so you can view our games on our website http://www.umaikigames.com/
Umaiki Games
Umaiki Games
Zirkonia is my personal passion project on that side, but canceled at the moment 🙂

Rich at 11:39 AM
how many people work for the studio?

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:39 AM
@TheNerdBasement I personally did some tracks for a game called Planet Centauri, but there’s nothing I’ve worked on before that.

Mike (Trifragger) at 11:40 AM
Lettuce and tomatoes….
:laughing:

nureaufan at 11:40 AM
When will it come to PC?

csg at 11:42 AM
When will it come to PC?

Ne weed a few more months to polish the pc version with additional options, visuals and stuff! We will announce the date in a few weeks.

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:42 AM
@Rich We are kinda in a in-between state of being a group of people who makes games and being an actual studio that makes games. But we’re three people (csg is the boss and main programmer, Sabbi is the leading artist and I’m the main composer). There’s also Schotti, but he’s not a contracted worker and doing his own project right now.

Nerd House at 11:42 AM
I played a bit of Planet Centauri!

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:43 AM
(I actually still didn’t play it…)
I don’t even know if my music is or has ever been in the game to be quite honest :sweat_smile:

Rich at 11:47 AM
you mentioned your publisher fabraz, was it necessary to find a publisher to get your game on switch?

NoahIvaldi at 11:47 AM
What frustrates you most in a video game, whether you overall enjoy the game or not?

TheNerdBasement at 11:48 AM
What is the RPG that defines you?

Rich at 11:49 AM
since you mentioned this being your first commercial game, now that the game has released and people are playing it, what is the biggest thing you have learned?

Sabaku at 11:49 AM
@NoahIvaldi The last time I was really frustrated by a game was Dream Daddy, and it was probably because my expectations were very much different from what I got (awesome game tho)

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:50 AM
@NoahIvaldi Sudden spikes in difficulty are super frustrating and I hate it (looking at you, Switch-exclusive DQ11 bonus boss).
@TheNerdBasement Nier. The original one, not Automata (which is still a great game though).

Sabaku at 11:50 AM
What is the RPG that defines you?
@TheNerdBasement

Golden Sun 2, it’s the rpg of my dreams

csg at 11:51 AM
you mentioned your publisher fabraz, was it necessary to find a publisher to get your game on switch?

We never thought of putting it on the switch tbh! Fabraz saw our gifs on twitter and contacted us themselves about the idea. They already shipped 2 games to the switch so they got the connections, so I don’t really know much about it. But I heard a lot about that it is hard to talk with Nintendo because so many people are contacting them about getting on the switch so a publisher is definitely necessary right now.

Rich at 11:51 AM
@Bjoern Means Bear no spoilers on DQ11S post game bosses please, i just rolled the credits on act 2 😉

NoahIvaldi at 11:52 AM
He just said that there was one, not what it was.

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:52 AM
yeah, no worries on that

Rich at 11:52 AM
i know i still have like another 50 hrs to go

csg at 11:54 AM
What is the RPG that defines you?

Final fantasy 6 and xenoblade chronicles

Rich at 11:56 AM
last call for questions

NoahIvaldi at 11:56 AM
Asking the real important questions:
Inkling or octoling?

Bjoern Means Bear at 11:57 AM
@NoahIvaldi Octoling
@Nerd House I will abide the “no spoilers” rule!

Nerd House at 11:57 AM
Xenoblade Chronicles is in the Top 3 of my favorite games of all time. I AM literally DYING to get the Definitive edition, I will own it a third time.
DM it to me then!

Sabaku at 11:57 AM
since you mentioned this being your first commercial game, now that the game has released and people are playing it, what is the biggest thing you have learned?
@Rich You definitely get a good and very different look on the industry as a whole. There is a whole lot of interactions with players, Media, Nintendo, people who make merchandise and you need to learn how to deal with those. Fabraz gave us a big boost (and support) in regards for that, getting us really involved with every step of the process. Before that I wouldn’t even really have known how to get in contact with Nintendo 🙂
And in addition to that, you also learn how important it is that every part of your development process is heavily optimized and well organized!
There is a lot of frustration involved when you have a definite dead line coming up and you stumble over old roadblocks

csg at 12:00 PM
Xenoblade Chronicles is in the Top 3 of my favorite games of all time. I AM literally DYING to get the Definitive edition, I will own it a third time.

The game really surprised me with it’s world design. I love stuff like this!

Sabaku at 12:00 PM
Asking the real important questions:
Inkling or octoling?
@NoahIvaldi Ink Ink Ink

NoahIvaldi at 12:02 PM
As long as everyone has an answer.

csg at 12:03 PM
Asking the real important questions:
Inkling or octoling?

Both!

NoahIvaldi at 12:03 PM
Both is fair. I can take that.

csg at 12:04 PM
(I hope we got all questions? :sweat_drops: )

Rich at 12:04 PM
I wanted to thank everyone for joining us especially @csg, @Bjoern Means Bear & @Sabaku from Umaiki Games for joining us today. They’ve created a great game with Skellboy, i have enjoyed it and everyone should pick it up. Can’t wait to see what you guys add to the game and do next

Sabaku at 12:04 PM
Thank you very much for having us and everyone else for the questions!

csg at 12:04 PM
Thanks a lot for hosting this AM A, was a lot of fun!! :heart:

TheNerdBasement at 12:05 PM
Thank all for joining

Sabaku at 12:05 PM
Don’t forget that BotW is an action-rpg

Bjoern Means Bear at 12:05 PM
an action-ADVENTURE

NoahIvaldi at 12:05 PM
:polterpup:

Bjoern Means Bear at 12:05 PM
!
with rpg elements

csg at 12:05 PM
:joy:
Tbh botw is just an open world game
:thinking:
running away

Rich at 12:06 PM
:wave:

csg at 12:06 PM
:wave:

Bjoern Means Bear at 12:06 PM
:wave:

Sabaku at 12:06 PM
:wave:

Elias 10:35 AM
Glad to see the Zelda tradition did not die in our AM A’s. So sad that I missed this one. Thank you guys for giving us some of your time. I do want to praise the graphical style of Skellboy. It looks so damn good on Switch. :heart:

Sabaku 12:59 PM
Thank you Elias :heart: