Hey folks,
We’re back with another Dev Diary! This time, we’ll be talking about the games that inspired us to make GoobnBalloonsDX, with a little bit of game development backstory. We are excited to show you how we’ve improved upon the original game; from its arcade-y feeling to the story mode, bosses, and couch co-op experience.
Like many games, we pulled from a wide palette of inspirations from games already on the market. A variety of the features found in the game may seem familiar - and this is by design.
We have several titles that inspire our game, including Cuphead, Bubble Bobble, and most significantly WarioWare’s Bird & Beans (or Pyoro in Europe). Bird & Beans is one of the minigames in the WarioWare series where you essentially play as a bird named Pyoro who must eat the beans before they touch the ground, or you’ll lose the ground you walk on. If the bean touches Pyoro, game over!
Adopting And Adapting
There are several reasons why Birds & Beans was the main inspiration for the original game. The simple, single-screen nature of the game fit the scope of the week-long game jam. Additionally, a major feature of Bird & Beans was how the stage would evolve with your score, which we figured would coincide with the event’s theme of “Growth” (as mentioned in our previous Dev Diary here). The end result was a single-screen, score-based game, with an emphasis on changing game elements as the game progressed.
When going from the original to remake, we had a chance to readdress the art style. Since most people on the team have an art background, we wanted to stay true to our roots and draw the entire game from scratch. We eventually remade Goobstar in one to two months, going for a cartoony, lighthearted vibe.
In the DX version, while Cuphead’s art style somewhat inspired our visuals, it mostly influenced our approach to bosses. We wanted to emulate Cuphead’s expressive, multi-phase fights in our own campaign. We also took more subtle hints from Cuphead’s approach, such as the lack of an apparent health bar during combat, as well as the fact that the bosses health value scales upwards in co-op play.
About the Cast
Originally, we wanted to add several characters in GoobnBalloons, but didn’t have the time needed. When we developed the improved version, GoobnBalloonsDX, we were finally able to add more characters you’ve probably already seen from our socials. Here are some secrets about their development that you may not know about:
Bethany’s Beginnings…
When working on the original GoobnBalloons, we weren’t able to add Bethany to the list of playable characters; so we had her sketches neatly tucked away. She was actually one of the designs we sketched out back when we were designing the main character for GoobnBalloons. She was shortlisted to be implemented in the game, and lo and behold, Bethany was born in GoobnBalloonsDX!
It was Time for More
Bethany was the only design premeditated before development. After making her we knew we wanted at least one or two more characters in the roster. At some point, somebody thought it would be fun to have a character who goes beyond the 5 standard shooting directions, instead using the entire analog stick. Extrapolating this into a pun, a little clock robot with an aimable cannon on his back named Mr. Analogue was created.
Kris’ Battle with a Bird
When coming up with new characters, our artist Veronica doodled various concepts and how they would work mechanically. One of which was a round bird with an extended beak. The team grew attached to this idea, later making the connection that he functions similarly to Pyoro from Bird & Beans - an unintentional homage.
Making the animation for Pajarito was an excruciating work. Kris had to redo them 4 to 5 times, because the character technically needs 3 different sprites: head, legs, and beak. When his beak extends to pop balloons, he needs 6 frames of animation in each direction, which didn’t always work correctly. Safe to say, he’s not Kris’ favorite character 😆.
Any Characters That Didn’t Make It In?
In an AMA on our Discord, a community member asked if there were any early character designs/concepts that didn’t end up making it into the game. The answer is yes. We initially had an idea where certain balloons would have tails, but we ended up scrapping it. There were also character ideas such as a cat in a tank, a lizard with fireballs… at one point in one of the boss fights, we almost had an enemy cat that would bounce around the arena!
Approaching Release
Now that we’re closing in on release, we’re excited to announce that GoobnBalloonsDX is coming to Steam, Xbox One/Series X and S, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch on September 12!🤩 Don’t forget to wishlist the game, and follow us on X/Twitter for more updates! Join our Discord and chat directly with us and other Goob fans on the server daily!
See you on the next Dev Diary!👋👋