baddy breakdown's Blurbs

About Bloody Hell

✰✰ Ratings ✰✰

Recommend. This game was free and totally worth the value of the time we played it. Definitely on the harder side and for those that like a challenge and to get your blood pumping. Also music >>>>

baddy breakdown's Latest Blog Entry

Bloody Hell Interview

Transcript of conversation via Discord with designers/devs of Bloody Hell- Guus (LooseGoose on Discord), Dion, and Berend

Maddy: What inspired you all to create this game? Was there a particular event, idea, or experience that sparked the concept?

Guus (aka Loose Goose): Well the whole game started as a 3 day project Berend did, in which he created a basic bullet-hell roguelite game. After that me and him figured why not try to make a full fledged bullet-hell game since we had gained confidence we could actually accomplish that. So we started working on it but we didn't want to make it just another bullet-hell roguelite/like game. We wanted something that we ourselves would enjoy making more. So we added the metroidvania concept to it. Now that prototype we made together was quite sh*t, but we did still like the idea, then for a different school project we decided to keep working on it with some more people which is where Dion and also 2 others came in. That prototype (or beta we called it), was made in about 10ish weeks or so. And we also didn't like it. So after that one (yes ik took us way too long) we finally started on the Bloody Hell you know today. The development of that took us 5 months, all of which was technically for a school project. Although we didn't really care about the project and just wanted to make the game as cool as possible.

We really wanted the combat to be satisfying and the exploration to be fun. Which were our core pillars that most of the other design was based upon.

Dion: Before starting development on the beta we already wanted to do something with an angel going to hell and then murdering a ton of demons (don't ask me why because I can't remember lol). The beta mostly takes place in what is supposedly a big bathhouse in Hell for demons to bathe in blood. Aside from the pigs which wore towels (which one of our teachers thought looked more like a fat rabbit in a diaper), the environment wasn't really convincing enough for it to actually look like a bathhouse. 

Once we started development on the Steam version of Bloody Hell we dropped the idea of the bathhouse and also made the player character not just an angel, but a bird angel ( :

Maddy: To add on, why did you all make the game? I think I was reading it might have been a school project? Or an internship? 

Guus (LooseGoose): yeah it was indeed a school project, the reason we wanted to make the game was because it would be amazing experience for us. And because we hoped to gain a bit of attention which hopefully would be beneficial when we start working on our next games as an actual studio together. For this reason the game is also free, we just wanted a lot of people's feedback and hopefully get our name out there a bit. We never expected this blow up though, we expected like 50 reviews max.  Another reason its free is also because we knew we wouldn't be able to give it long term support because we've all had busy internships starting just a couple days after release.

Maddy: How long did it take to develop the game? Were there any unexpected delays or challenges that arose during the process?

Guus (LooseGoose): As i stated before, the current build of Bloody Hell took 5 months to develop. However there were quite a few iterations before that that also took up quite a bit of time.

All the assets and code from those previous iterations were all scrapped though because we really didn't like what it was before (neither the code nor the art). We did keep the porkchop boss (back then he was called Gigapork) but did adjust him quite a bit since the prototype before was all black and white.

Another fun fact about development time, I think we only took the last 2? Months (correct me if I'm wrong) on the actual level you see in the game. Since all level designs before that had been scrapped.

Dion: About the fun fact that we only started making the final map halfway through development: I was scared to shit because Guus and Berend wanted to throw everything away that we made. In the end it didn't matter that much because the demo wasn't that large and we improved the beginning of the game quite a bit.

Maddy: What technical software did you all use to develop the game? What were each of your roles in development (or did everyone do everything?) 

Guus (LooseGoose): We used Unity as our game engine, we also had some sound designers that worked with FMOD, and then for art we used Aseprite. In terms of roles because you are with such a small team you end up doing kinda everything. But Dion was the main artist, Berend as the main dev, and I was kinda doing both. And then all 3 of us did the design work.

Dion: Our roles were really mixed yeah, which was really fun for me. At our school the artists usually specialize in a certain field/part of the development process, which I usually don't find as interesting. It was kind of a relief that we were able to finish the game, because it showed me that I can be more of a jack of all trades and still be somewhat 'successful'. Besides art I also did a bit of marketing (which was mostly posting updates of the game on Twitter and Reddit). This was kind of a challenge because in my spare time I don't really like to post on social media and I had to learn how to make good posts while also making the game.

Maddy: Looking back on the development process, is there anything you would have done differently? Are there any lessons you learned that you are going to apply to future game development projects?

Guus (LooseGoose): Uhm yeah ofc, we learned so much along the way, whether that is actual knowledge of things like art/coding/design or other things like how to properly iterate, when to start things like marketing, and how to do that. So uhm yeah, bit too much to sum up but kinda on every aspect. That's also why we feel quite confident in making more future games because we feel we can do so much better than we have done for Bloody Hell.

Maddy: What do you hope players will take away from the game?

Guus (LooseGoose): Well enjoyment is ofc the main thing. We want players to remember the game fondly even if it was relatively short. And if players can get a deeper message along the way that would be even better. We do like to keep the interpretation of what the game holds up to the individual player though. It's about what they experience and we will just try to make it fun along the way.

Dion: yeah the main goal of this game was just to have players enjoy it, we figured that would be a big enough challenge in and of itself. The main thing that I want players to enjoy is not just the combat, but also all of the hidden areas (some of them gags (and even a visual pun that I still haven't seen anyone talk about 😉 )). Those brief moments of joy are something that I like about other games, and can be very special and memorable

Maddy: Were you inspired by any games in particular? 

Guus (LooseGoose): I personally was actually not a big fan of bullet-hells before this although that was mainly cause I’m not a big fan of Roguelikes/lites (which is also why we didn’t make one) unless they are done really well. But we most definitely took a lot of inspiration from games like Enter the Gungeon, Hollow knight, Archvale, Hyperlight Drifter or even games like Dark Souls.

Maddy: Did you get an A? 

Guus (LooseGoose): yeah xd, we got a "Zeer Goed '' which is Dutch for "very good' which is the highest grade. However we really don’t care about the grade, it was really about the experience and all other stuff we gained from it.