Here are the answers to our recent AMA, straight from Star Overdrive's lead developer, Tommaso from Caracal Games. He delves into the game's inspirations, mechanics, and even the story behind the manga! 👀
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Do you think this game could be fun for someone that enjoys exploration from open worlds but has very limited time?
We wanted to make a "short" open world, so to complete the game it will only take 10-15 hours instead of 80-100 like other open worlds. We also designed it to be played in short sections with no problems (20-30 minutes maybe? Depends on the player!)
What were the inspirations behind the game? Personally, it gave me strong Trigun vibes.
Trigun, we love it! You know that Bios' hair is the result of some iteration that started from Vash the Stampede? They have a different temper anyway 🙂
We grew up in the '90s, so anime and manga are for sure one of the sources of inspiration, directly or indirectly. The very first concept of Star Overdrive was born after I saw Eureka Seven, an incredible anime in terms of visuals and style—and they’ve got hoverboards, of course. You can see a lot of that in Star Overdrive, but a major part of the world design is inspired by the work of Roger Dean and Chris Foss, incredible illustrators from the last century.
For the music, of course, Van Halen 😉
What's the framerate on the Steam version?
The performance will depend on the hardware running the game. However, Star Overdrive is a very light game, so even on some older machines you should be able to run it very well!
What's the manga about? Is it background info, or a retelling of the plot? I see it available as DLC. Is that the only way to read it?
The manga is a parallel project that we worked on over the past year. We wanted to go a little deeper into the story, taking advantage of this different medium to better show the main character's emotions.
Volume 0 is 180 pages and follows part of the game’s story, but it goes deeper into certain aspects and includes an entire section dedicated to a key prequel event that’s not in the game (only mentioned).
The manga is available as DLC on the e-shop, or you can buy the physical version on Amazon. It's called "Star Overdrive - Beyond the Stars". It's written by me (Tommaso) and illustrated by the awesome Alfredo Postiglione (an Italian mangaka).
Star Overdrive features a unique mix of traversal and combat. How did you balance hoverboard mechanics with enemy encounters to keep gameplay fluid?
Cebete (the planet where Star Overdrive is set) was designed like a giant skate/hoverboard park, with traversal speed in mind. On top of that, we added points of interest for platforming, puzzles, and combat (like mines and towers), as well as activities related to hoverboard riding (like time trials and races).
The space between these points is kept consistent to ensure you can ride for a bit before reaching the next area of interest. The center of the map is denser with points (since you go slower with the hoverboard there), and the outer areas are more spread out (because you move much faster later in the game).
The really tricky part—which I’m very happy with (I’m also the level designer)—was that we were able to communicate effectively (but indirectly) where the player should ride and where they should explore on foot. Our testers during development, and feedback from the demo, confirmed that it seems to be working well.
What inspired the power-combination system in combat?
The power system was by far the most difficult—but also the most rewarding—system to develop.
It started, of course, with inspiration from Breath of the Wild’s power system. But since Star Overdrive needed more fast-paced action, we wanted the powers to be more integrated into the combat. You can use powers in combat in BOTW too, but in Star Overdrive, the combat system is based on using powers. They have cumulative effects, not only based on physics, but also on mathematical interactions.
We built the system so that combining powers with enemies, objects, or even the hoverboard always creates a result. During development, we actually discovered several cool mechanics by accident, like the “slingshot,” where you link an enemy/object/hoverboard to two points and then use the grab to charge and throw. It was so fun that we added it into the main quest!
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2055590/Star_Overdrive/
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