The development of classic NES-like platformer Bat Boy is an interesting story. Sina Faroughi, a visual artist and graphics designer, moved to Japan to pursue his dreams of becoming a game developer. Instead, he found his way to a toy company designing figurines. His dreams weren't forgotten though - in fact, they were realized as soon as he shared ideas with his bosses.
Bat Boy is a traditional side-scrolling platformer that is heavily inspired by NES classics like Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden, developed by Osaka-based X PLUS in collaboration with Sonzai Games. Game Rant spoke with Faroughi from X PLUS and Sergio Matta from Sonzai Games about Bat Boy's hybrid nature, inspirations, baseball-related mechanics, and upcoming appearance at IndieLand 2022. Interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Let's start with you and X PLUS. Can you tell us about your gaming and game development history, and how you found yourself developing games at X PLUS?
Faroughi: I find this story interesting as X PLUS is actually a toy and figurine company that I joined in 2017 as a graphic designer. I came to Japan with the dream to work in the game industry. Considering I had an art background and a year and a half of game development background prior to my entry, one day I brought up the idea to make games at X PLUS. To my surprise luckily the company wasn’t against trying something new. I contacted people that I trusted and had previously worked with or studied with in Japan and that’s where our small team got together in 2018.
I have to add, X PLUS has been working on most of its games with another friend of ours, Sonzai Games Co., Ltd., which is also located in Osaka, Japan, and assists us with game and level designs, as well as programming tasks. And Bat Boy is not an exception to this collaboration.
Q: Bat Boy is your latest project. What type of game is it, genre-wise?
Faroughi: Bat Boy is an NES-style, Mega Man-esque side-scrolling action platformer. Although we tried to be faithful to NES with aesthetics, there have been improvements in colors and animations.
Q: It has a very specific style. What kind of games would you consider inspirations for Bat Boy?
Faroughi: I think our inspirations for the game are very clear if you watch any of our gameplay videos for like 10 seconds, many have told us that it reminds them of the original Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden games, and Shovel Knight, which are our greatest inspirations. However, that’s what we want people to think at first glance, we are admirers of Nintendo retro games, and once you play Bat Boy I think you will find even more inspirations from other classics.
In terms of art style, it’s hard to put my finger on a specific game.
Q: The game has an interesting story. Can you tell us about that?
Faroughi: The story is placed in an alternate universe Tokyo where our heroes are school kids in Sentai warrior-like suits. Bat Boy's story happens in a different realm known as Stratoss after the heroes get ambushed one night in Tokyo by the villain known as Lord Vicious.
Q: There's an important bird in the picture. Who is Garou?
Faroughi: Garou is a talking crow companion of Bat Boy. Garou helps Bat Boy in his journey in Stratoss. He follows him around and gives him hints from time to time as well as keeping him company.
Q: There are also other companions that you find along the way, can you elaborate?
Faroughi: I don’t want to touch on this topic too much in detail, but there are old and new friends that Bat Boy encounters in the Stratoss. Stratoss is a villainous land so making friends isn’t easy!
Also, after our Kickstarter, we added pets to the game which Bat Boy can rescue on his way in various stages and take to a safe house in Groovyhouse, the hub of the game.
Q: How did you come up with such a unique narrative? Are there a lot of baseball fans at X PLUS?
Faroughi: The idea originally came from Sonzai Games. X PLUS actually has lots of golf fans, to be honest with you!
Matta: I like baseball, and all of us being in Japan it just felt like the national sport was the way to go. The narrative talks about a kid and his friends being teleported to a different world and having to save them. I wanted high stakes, I wanted the player to immediately understand the main character’s motivations and share them with him.
Kidnapping all his friends is the perfect narrative. Everybody can imagine how bad it would feel if all your friends were kidnapped! You would definitely want to save them at all costs. Also, if your friends all happen to be superheroes too, and you get new skills from saving them, all the better for gameplay!
Lastly, the magical and strange world. Like in most games, it is the perfect excuse to go crazy with the themes and mechanics. Mario would not be as interesting if it took place in a real place, like Ohio. It needs to have strange creatures and places to let the imagination of the player flow.
Q: There has been somewhat of a surge in games that combine sports with other genres (Dodgeball Academia, Golf Story, even Rocket League), do you consider yourself part of this trend, and what are your thoughts about it?
Faroughi: At the start of the development, we mainly thought of sport as an interesting motif for our heroes. I started to notice especially when we attended BitSummit in 2021. There are so many games with sports as their theme out recently, like the ones you named. Whether we like it or not, I guess we are considered part of this trend. Keep in mind, games are awesome, but sports are also good for you!
Q: So Bat Boy refers to the sport instrument instead of the caped crusader. But since it's not a sports game per se, how is batting involved in gameplay? And how does combat work in general?
Faroughi: Bat Boy is a term used in baseball which refers to an individual who carries balls to the players. Well, I know it isn’t that either, but we thought it was a good title for a hero and a reference to the sport. Bat Boy uses his bat a lot in the game from combat to defense and even movement, the player will be constantly swinging their bat throughout the game.
Q: You acquire skills as you advance, in a sort of Mega Man fashion. Can you give us a taster of what kind of skills to expect and how they play into the challenges within the game?
Faroughi: Let’s talk about what is already playable in our demo. Take the Grapple Ribbon, for example, you defeat Starlet Twirl, and she teaches Bat Boy how to use this skill. It enables Bat Boy to traverse vertically and grapple and move up wherever there is a wall or ceiling, this ability is given to the players early in the game, and not only it can be used to attack enemies, but you can use it to work your way up very quickly, there are so many scenarios where this skill can be used.
Of course, it all comes with a price of one Stamina point, which can be fully recovered at every checkpoint. Other skills that get unlocked in the game follow the same concept.
Q: The visual style is reminiscent of NES platformers. Are there any specific games that you wanted Bat Boy to look or feel like?
Faroughi: From the beginning, we were looking for an authentic NES look. And that does not only refer to the limited color palette or the small screen size but also concerns other factors such as the number of animation frames and limitations to what the character or the A.I. can do.
We had to be very careful with this, sometimes we made very smooth animations that ended up being overkill and had to go back and reduce the frames for the animations. Or sometimes you’d think of crazy attack patterns for boss battles but would make more sense if they were done for a next-gen title. I think Bat Boy has a strong Megaman or Ninja Gaiden vibe to it but still if you look back you can easily tell how far 8-bit games have evolved since then.
Q: Can you tell us about the sound effect and what type of music you decided to go for?
Faroughi: The 8-bit music was composed by a good old friend of ours, Evader Music. Damian has been working with us on our other titles as well and is a wizard when it comes to synth and chiptune music. Check out his work: https://www.evadermusic.com/
The 8-bit sound effects were done by Jonathon Orsi, he works very professionally and really, really, really delicately. One may think 8-bit sounds are easy to handle, but it’s really not, it takes a lot of effort to get them right and not to make people’s ears bleed!
Q: You are currently preparing to join IndieLand, can you tell us about that opportunity?
Faroughi: Shortly after the Kickstarter for Bat Boy, The Completionist's fantastic team reached out to us and thought Bat Boy might be a good fit for the event which we were really happy and moved to hear. IndieLand is a great event for an even greater cause that affects a lot of people and their families around the world, so it's awesome to see Bat Boy who is also someone who fights to help others have an opportunity to be part of this event in real life.
We're really hoping that we can help show the spirit and goodwill that indie games have to offer, and we're deeply honored to have the chance to be a part of it!
Q: Is there anything special you are planning for your IndieLand appearance?
Faroughi: We are very happy that we had the opportunity to be the guest in the live stream. It isn’t much but to express our appreciation we prepared three digital game keys for our three developed and published games Smelter, Super Sami Roll, and Echolocaution. Three keys each to reward the donors.
Q: Bat Boy is still in development, can you tell us when we can expect it to be released?
Faroughi: We are aiming for early 2023. Aiming.
Q: Are there any plans on making Bat Boy into a series?
Faroughi: Yes! Absolutely. Now does this mean Bat Boy and his team will survive this episode? We can’t say for sure. But there are so many ideas we still have floating around, be it for a sequel, DLC, or a prequel for Bat Boy.
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Bat Boy is aiming for an early 2023 release on PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The game will appear as part of IndieLand 2022 on Tuesday, November 8 at 7:00 p.m. PST.