WEBVTT

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Alright, we're in Barcelona for the IndieDevDays and we're taking a look at the game by iStudio

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which looks like it has something to do with Gamereactor but they don't

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and it's looking really really nice which is Retro Reactor

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and they are presenting this very interesting, very nice looking hand-drawn fighting game

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which is Two Strikes, so thank you so much for joining us Danilo

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What can you tell us about the main concept of the game other than its beautiful art style?

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Well, the idea came from watching samurai movies and especially Seven Samurai from Akira Kurosawa

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and in this movie there's a scene where there's a duel between two Ronin, like two wondrous samurais

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and like in the beginning they fight with wooden swords and then they attack at the same time

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and one of them say oh yeah well it was a tie and the other said no

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actually if it were like real swords you'd be dead by now

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and the other guy oh no let's do it again let's draw real swords and they draw the swords

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and the whole situation changes, everybody tenses up, everybody's like sweating

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like the crowd gathers, nobody can breathe

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and just like that, just in a flash, like in one strike the fight is over

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and that's what was the idea that I got for my first game, this is my second game

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my first game is One Strike and now I'm with the sequel

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I'm working on this one for almost five years now and it's almost ready to be released

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Are you a solo developer or do you have a team with you working on the art and the gameplay design and everything?

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I have a lot of people working with me, not anymore but as freelancers

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but it's a solo project like I'm the programmer and game designer of the game

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and I hire people to work with me, artists and sound designers, QA historian now working with me as well

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I'm not acquainted with the prequel, with the original game

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so what can you tell us, I don't know the differences between the first game and this one

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so what can you tell us about what you're trying to achieve here

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in terms of I don't know graphics and gameplay differences compared to the first game

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They are very very different, the first game was my first commercial game

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I used to do educational games before and that was my first shot with outdoor games

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and I did everything by myself because it was really hard to find people to get in the band with me

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to try to do something together, so I did everything by myself

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in eight months I finished pixel art, it has the same simple premise but it's a lot simpler than this one

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on this one what I wanted to do was to get everything that I learned from the first game

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make it more interesting in any way possible

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so the art is such a huge leap that it's even hard to explain

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because one game is my, I started pixel artist working on it

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and this game is made by really really good talented skilled artists

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and the gameplay is also another thing that is very different from the first one

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because the first one didn't have a lot of testing and didn't have a lot of community

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I didn't have a lot of touch with the community

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so with the first game I gather like a community, a lot of people like the game

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because it was released on the Nintendo Switch, it did quite well there

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so I actually have now like a kind of a supportive community that's behind me now

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and this game had all of that, so it's better in every single way from the first one

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now that you mentioned the art, what can you tell us about the work that went into making this beautiful artwork

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work frame by frame, hand-drawn in a fighting game which always you know

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for example we were talking with Mario developers the other day

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and they were like if we go too complex with the animations

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then what about the response and then how both characters collide, right?

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so how do you work on balancing beautiful art hand-drawn with frame-based fighting game?

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It's a difficult situation, it's a very difficult situation

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because I decided to go with 2D again because I already had experience

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so I decided to keep on something that I was comfortable with

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and at the same time it was difficult to work with such great artists

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because balancing a fighting game means changing the animations, changing the velocity that they play

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so I mean I had a lot of drama to deal with

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It was almost like a fighting game with your artist

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It was basically, yeah, at some point he even said that I was ruining his art

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so yeah, now you have like an understanding

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we're all Brazilians so imagine it's a big drama

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And how does that gameplay work?

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What are you guys, what are players going to do here?

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Is it very complex in terms of combos or is it simple input but you have to be very fast and very skilled

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so how does it work in terms of you know the different characters and how the fighting works?

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Well, I have to say that this is a very unique fighting game

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because it's not, I don't think you're going to play anything like it

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and I'm not saying that because I'm trying to boost anything

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it's just because I've been participating in a lot of events like this

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and I've seen like, and I love fighting games as well

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so what goes into this game is a mixture of beautiful art, strategy and very casual gameplay

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but not ultra casual

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so it's not as simple as like dive kick or footsies

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it doesn't have any combos

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I decided to remove that because it was something that I never enjoyed that much about fighting games

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I think it's beautiful to watch but as a fighting game player I never was really into it

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but I always loved the other aspects of it

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so like the footsies, the mind games

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so this game is completely focused on that

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on moving your character around

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like creating plays that trigger defenses on your opponent

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or like an attack that is not going to hit

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and you can like capitalize on that

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so it's about, I would say that the strong point on it is mind games

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even though it's a really fast paced game it's also quite strategic

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because there's a lot of, like the game loop is quite short

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because it's one or two strikes that finishes the match

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exactly, there's no energy bar, there's no life bar

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and this is on purpose because since the game is actually inspired by movies

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I wanted to give completely UI free gameplay

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so the only things that the players they have to look, they have to pay attention is the characters

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and it's a life or death duel, you have to be serious

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but at the same time between rounds I put like a round counter

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so the game stops a little bit so you can think on your strategy for the next match

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so at the same time it's super fast paced

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the matches can last 5 seconds or 20, 30 seconds

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but you stop a little bit and you think okay so I did this this round

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what can I do to get my opponent on the next round you know

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and any sort of specials that you can pull off

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and what can you tell us about the characters themselves, the differences between them

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no there's no specials, each character has weak attacks and a strong attack

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the strong attack finishes in one strike and the weak attacks finishes in two strikes

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but of course the strong attacks they have a long animation

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and they are really easy to defend

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and besides that you have mechanics that for example the parry mechanic

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even though you cannot hold the button and defend, it's a parry mechanic

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if you do it properly it's very strong

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so attacking is very dangerous in this game

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so that's why you have to think a lot, you have to trick your opponent to use the parry

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because the parry at the same time is quite strong

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if you fail it can open you to counter attacks

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and it looks fantastic, it looks like Star Wars Visions the first episode

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it looks like this with the black and white it looks really really good

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and you mentioned the Switch before, so which platforms are you aiming to release on

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and I've heard that you have a publisher so when can we expect to be playing Two Strikes?

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Well we just recently signed with Intel 2 Studios

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and we're working on it, so far we don't have the exact dates

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but it will be early 2024

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and the idea is to release in most platforms

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so Switch, PlayStation and Xbox

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Where did you get the name of the studio from?

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Oh good question, it's quite old

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I've been doing games for 8 years now

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and at that time I always imagined that I would do more retro style games

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but with this game it didn't work out that way

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So now, I don't know

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In a way, fighting is retro

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Yeah, so the Reactor came because I'm an electronic engineer

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I'm not like an IT guy

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So I used to work with solar panels

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So I wanted to bring this to my gaming career

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So that's the reason

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And we love Reactors, I game Reactors

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So that's very nice

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Thank you so much for your time

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Enjoy the show and good luck with the game

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Thank you and thanks for having me