Rose: For someone who has never heard of your game, how would you describe it without using the usual genre labels?
You play as a bird who must survive the difficult migratory journey north. You pickpocket cards from rival birds to build a deck of abilities that help you survive the journey.
Rose: Where did the idea for this game come from?
Older Pokemon games were my initial inspiration. Pokemon funnels you into battles with fellow trainers and I thought, what if I designed a game where the goal was to sneak past those trainers. The pixel art top down style also came from Pokemon.
I also started birdwatching about 4 years ago, so the bird theme came from the idea of a bird that did everything in its power not to be seen (damage is dealt when an enemy bird sees you, not during a combat step like most games).
Rose: What makes your game different from other games in the same space?
Compared to most deckbuilders, Shrike has an emphasis on stealth instead of battle/combat. The grid based board and movement is also uncommon. The only other game I have seen with that is Death Howl. And of course, the bird theme!
Rose: Was there anything you had to cut that you still secretly wish you could put back?
Originally, inspired by the board game RoboRally, the movement system was completely card based. You had cards with numbers and were also given a separate set of movement actions (turn left, forward, backward, etc). Then you would play the number cards on the movement actions to perform that number of the specified action.
It turned out to be too slow, not fun, and especially difficult to implement with the pixel art style so I changed it to an arrow key movement system which was much more fun and better fit the core idea.
So I do not wish to put it back in Shrike, however, I do think a separate game that expands upon the main RoboRally mechanic would be really cool.
Rose: What is something players probably won't realize took an absurd amount of work?
The overall game art. I went through ~15 major iterations and many, many smaller iterations to get the pixel art just right.
I am a programmer by trade with no art skills, so I went with a pixel art game and purposely chose a smaller 8x8px tile grid and character sprites thinking it would make it easier to learn.
What I failed to realize is it makes it difficult to show smaller details. The art looks simple but it was quite the process getting it to be readable, fit the overall style, make the birds distinguishable by species, and refining the color palette.
Rose: What is the weirdest bug you've encountered that you almost wanted to keep?
Sometimes I accidentally add an extra 0 and spawn a bajillion enemies.
Rose: Is there a particular emotion you wanted players to walk away with from your game?
Migration is the most dangerous part of a bird's life so I wanted players to feel that danger. That is why I went with a darker, muted color palette and style. The game also leans towards being more difficult, taking chances vs absolute certainty, and has a few morbid flavors (i.e. each enemy bird has a unique method of killing you).
Rose: What's one piece of advice you wish you'd had before starting?
Pick a small project, then cut the scope in half, then cut the scope in half again.
This is my first commercial game so naturally I made a ton of mistakes and it took longer than I anticipated.
Rose: Five years from now, what do you hope people remember about this game?
That it helped them identify at least one new bird in real life.
Rose: Why should someone reading/watching this go play your game today?
Check out the demo on Steam if you like birds, a challenge, or want to see a different take on the deckbuilding genre.
Rose: Finally, the question we ask every developer: After everything you’ve told us, can you officially confirm that your game is, in fact, probably a game? Why should we believe you?
It is probably a game but you also probably should not believe a stranger on the internet.