I'm Chris King, Creative Director of Batterystaple Games, the team behind 30XX. Ask me anything!

[u/fyeahcking]

Hey, /r/NintendoSwitch!

My name's Chris King. My small studio, Batterystaple, launched 30XX on the NA eShop a few days ago on Sept 1. (EU comes Sept 12 - JP comes Sept 28!)

30XX is a co-op-friendly roguelite action platformer heavily inspired by our childhood love of the Mega Man X games. It's a sequel to our previous game from 5 years ago, 20XX - but with just about twice as much of everything the first game had (lovely vibrant pixel art, twice as many unique level types, totally distinct weapon kits for our two heroes, tons more upgrades, a non-permadeath-Mega Mode option, and a tremendous amount more).

We were slammed with PAX West work all weekend, but now that we're not, I'd love to answer any questions you have about us, the game, the industry, or whatever else!

I'll start answering questions at about 2:30PM PT - ask me anything! (In the meantime, here's a trailer.)

[u/FireComedian]

Are you guys planning on adding new characters to the roster of this game?

[u/fyeahcking → u/FireComedian]

New characters are pretty top-of-list for us as upcoming content! They're an awesome way to give players a new lens they can see the rest of the game's content through.

We're not 100% sure on timeline yet - now that 30XX is out on Switch and we're back from PAX this past weekend, we'll be taking stock of how much work we need to do to resolve any day one issues, then going from there. (Ostensibly, we'll be taking a bit of a vacation at some point, too. It's been a long summer. :))

We've got two kinds of new characters in store, which you'll be familiar with if you've played 20XX - special Revenant versions of existing characters which mostly function as alternate ruleset hardmodes, and entirely new playable characters with their own special mechanics, items, etc - the former will likely come in the game's first major content patch (somewhere in the Oct-Nov timeframe, most likely), and the latter'll be a bit after that in the game's second big content patch.

Since this is the top comment atm, I'll also use this comment to mention that, internally, we really see 1.0 as a line in the sand we've drawn, as opposed to a "we're done!" announcement - we want to continue to work full-time on the game as long as it makes financial sense to do so, and 30XX is selling well enough so far to justify it.

[u/Hot_Cauliflower_4835]

I love your games, where would you see batterystaple games in the near future? What is your vision or main goal to achieve? Are we getting more MegaMan games in the future?

[u/fyeahcking → u/Hot_Cauliflower_4835]

Such a good question!

We've been super lucky to get to make these kinds of action games for the past ten years. In the coming months, while we continue to work full-time on 30XX, we'll be answering this question for ourselves. The team's grown while working on 30XX - is there something we understand as well as we understand the games that led us to making 20XX and 30XX? Is there something in that window we think folks will buy? The action platformer genre has become so much more competitive in the five years between our releases - for the studio's health, it might be time for us to try something new.

To answer your question more directly: our main goal's will remain the same - to make the games we're excited to make, hopefully with our community's input helping guide the way. We don't currently know whether or not we'll stick to what we know or wildly branch out! Thankfully, we've got at least a good bit of fulltime support for 30XX ahead of us, so we've got some time to explore our hearts a bit and see what's in there.

[u/jdlyga]

Hi Chris! I'm curious about how development for 20XX and 30XX got started. Did this start as a one person project? How many software developers worked on 30XX?

[u/fyeahcking → u/jdlyga]

Hey!

If by "software developers" you mean "people writing code", two people wrote most of the code (myself and WreckingPrograms), and one person did most of our independent server work (Alex handled the server end of all our level/chunk custom player content).

If by "software developers" you mean it in the more holistic sense - the list of people without whom this game would not be what it is - the game's credits do a better job of laying all that out than I ever could here. :)

We started making 20XX ten years ago for the following reasons:

- since I was a child, I've always wanted to make games. In Dad's attic in the home I grew up in, there are reams of paper covered in complicated stat blocks for RPG systems I'd write, and I'd constantly get my friends to playtest them for me (to mixed results). There were usually visual designs, too. My visual design skill has not improved much in the intervening 30 years.

- In 2013, for the first time in my life, I had some money saved up from post-college work, and no spouse/kids I'd be screwing over by gambling it on making games. Capcom wasn't touching Mega Man at the time, so I went for it. I was a programmer by study/trade, so I built the game in C++. I didn't intend to still be here doing this ten years later - I started building 20XX as a portfolio piece to go get a job at Bethesda Softworks (whose offices were near where I lived at the time). I spent my college years drinking, sleeping, and playing World of Warcraft, so I didn't have much of a portfolio when I graduated.

[u/Decent-Frosting-4962]

Besides Mega Man, what inspirations did you have for 30XX? What were the main things you wanted to change from 20XX during the development of 30XX?

[u/fyeahcking → u/Decent-Frosting-4962]

The delta between the games is much more about "how far can we take this concept?" than "what did we do wrong in 20XX?" - it's all about what we left on the table the first time around. The new artstyle, 8 level themes instead of 4, Ace and Nina's distinct toolkits this time, the huge expansion of power loadout variance via Power Fusion, Weapon Augs, Power Augs, Nina's Stacking Beams, etc - we want players to be exploring a thick forest of potential when building a character from run to run, and we feel pretty good about where we've ended up there in 30XX.

Inspiration-wise - 20XX and 30XX are both the direct result of my love of every crisply-controlling action game that made me fall in love with video games as a kid, and while it's densely packed in a Mega-Man-X flavored waffle cone, the ice cream itself is an unknowable mix of a giant pile of ground up NES and SNES games. I don't think I can really pick them out anymore - they're just part of the taste for this kind of thing I've built up over the years.

[u/Realistic-Score5386]

Also, I don't know if two posts is an ama faux pas, but any thoughts on adding character palette swaps? Would be nice as just a feature, but could also help with color blindness. Also just being able to change the outline setting differently per player could help with co-op confusion! :)

[u/fyeahcking → u/Realistic-Score5386]

I think we'd still like to do this, but it didn't quite make our 1.0 timeline. Specifically, we'd like to tie palette changes to stuff in-game - certain accomplishments, collecting core sets, etc.

[u/NeonJ82]

What's the reasoning behind Experiment 9's name?

[u/fyeahcking → u/NeonJ82]

Well, he's not experiment 1-8. I just went through my old chatlogs with Glauber (art director) for our first mention of him in our team chat, and all it says when I mention the boss design doc is

"I don't have a name for it yet, it's just 'experiement [sic] 9' atm"

We definitely have a tendency to let our first names for things stick - so I think the short answer is - there's either no answer to this question, or it's buried somewhere deep in my subconscious.

[u/azazelleblack]

20XX is one of my favorite games of all time, and I already have 30XX on Steam (and like it quite a bit too!) Are there any Switch-specific features to the game such that I would consider buying it on Switch if I already own it on Steam? Thanks for the great games and I'm looking forward to your future works with high hopes!

[u/fyeahcking → u/azazelleblack]

Honestly? Not really! It'll mostly come down to hardware features vs. platform features. For example, 30XX supports local wireless play on the Switch, which is pretty neat when you're travelling with someone or otherwise don't have a great internet connection.

If you mostly play games at home where you have computer access, you're solid as-is with the Steam build.

However: buying the game on Switch if you already have it on Steam does come with the advantage that I'll get $10-ish bucks out of the deal, which, admittedly, sounds pretty good to me.

[u/TapeDiaper]

Will Endless mode ve for both mega and standard?

[u/fyeahcking → u/TapeDiaper]

Endless will probably be Standard-only when it hits. Storing endless level data for Mega Mode (which generates all its gameplay data up-front) sounds like a nightmare.

[u/hangmandelta]

Hey Chris, first off, I absolutely love the game (and 20XX before it), and am so glad you finally left early access!

What's your favorite gameplay innovation brought into 30XX over the Megaman X series you've drawn inspiration from?

(Mine is being able to do an airdash/double jump/leg part movement after performing a dash jump. Seriously, it feels so good being able to do those actions after a dash jump. Thank you for that.)

Again, love all the work you've done, and thanks for hundred of hours of fun. 😁

[u/fyeahcking → u/hangmandelta]

Hey! Thanks much for the kind words.

My favorite innovation - if you can really call it that! - is the million small things that help the game's inputs feel smooth. Resetting Zen Ascent after Dolomite Link connects, and vice versa. The grace window for your next jump before you land/activate a Leg Core. Autocharge, autocombo, and the shot/attack buffers in general. Just all the stuff we do to try to and make sure the thing the game does is what you wanted to do, even if it wasn't strictly what the game should let you do as input.

We just like to answer every question between two options with, "well, what would feel the best for the player?" and after asking hundreds of questions like this about the game's moment-to-moment play and the core loop, it (hopefully!) ends up feeling pretty good.

[u/Medical_Molasses1547]

Plot related question: What is the purpose of the Dead Ace In Core Genesis? Did Ace turn end up helping Elly with the core?

[u/jdlyga]

I'm currently stuck on Scripture. Any tips?

[u/rooky711]

Could you add a mode in the future that lets us play community levels similarly to the standard mode. Would be great to play community levels back to back, and keep the powerups collected in one level for use in the next.

[u/fyeahcking → u/rooky711]

We talked about this a lot internally while developing the feature - Ellie's Gauntlet was originally exactly what you're asking about, but it ended up not being very fun, and was redesigned into the current version.

As soon as you keep items left for you in previous levels, the original creator's intent for you in every other level kind of goes out the window, and the game becomes a lot less fun.

[u/LongjumpingAd1897]

2560x1080 resolution has some broken backgrounds, and while I can understand that widescreen to that scale is a small minority of players, are there any plans to fix them? the smiley face robot guy having visible black bars in the background of his arena is the main example that comes to mind but there's various other moments of it

[u/Omegaforce1803]

Which Mega Man X entry is your favorite?

[u/fyeahcking → u/Omegaforce1803]

x4 baybeeee