INTERVIEW: Blue Manchu Games - Developer of Wild Bastards

I recently was able to have a chat with Blue Manchu the developers behind the beloved first-person Roguelike game Wild Bastards (sequel to Void Bastards). Wild Bastards is described on Steam as a 'roguelike strategy shooter with heart-pounding FPS action, mod management, and a tactical campaign.' The game is about a rag-tag group of space cowboys traveling between planets to gun sling and build a team.

I was fortunate to talk to Jonathan Chey the founder of Blue Manchu Games.

Wild Bastards is a blend of different genres, such as Strategy, FPS, and Roguelike. How do the mixture of genres compliment each other and was it difficult finding the correct balance?

It's always difficult to create a product that crosses genre lines but that's something we've taken a special interest in throughout our studio's lifetime. Finding the right balance between the various ingredients is mostly a process of trial and error. I think it definitely helps though to establish a starting point and work from there. For example, Wild Bastards is an FPS with a strategic meta-game, not a strategy game with an action component. That helps us understand what comes first and it also informed how we developed the game (i.e. starting by getting the FPS part working properly).

Wild Bastards is not the first game in this franchise. What lesson would you say you learned from Voild Bastards and how different is the game from it’s predecessor?

While not officially a sequel, Wild Bastards clearly draws on a lot of ideas that we developed in Void Bastards. For example, we learned that if you want to mix a shooter with strategic components, you need to find a way of making the shooting elements relatively short in order to give the higher-level strategy game enough "room to breathe". If you spend too long in any one combat experience, you tend to forget the context by the time you return to the framing meta-game. But in Wild Bastards, we wanted to push that idea a bit further and try to make the combats even tighter and more focused. That meant we had to push some of the decision-making that you carried out in the combat mode in Void Bastards into the strategy mode in Wild Bastards. So, for example, you pick up loot while fighting in Void Bastards, but you gather that loot after the combat in Wild Bastards. Moving those elements "up" a level enables us to simplify and streamline the combats.

I have heard that different planets have unique traits to them. What are the type of differences we can expect to see as we travel from planet to planet?

Each planet has its own characteristic terrain that frames the combats that take place on it. For example, Sierra planets are, of course, mountainous with lots of vertical elements and long sight lines. Snow slows down movement, making sniping and long range-combat a focus. In contrast, Bayou planets feature lots of sight-blocking reeds that encourage more up close and personal exchanges. Hostile worlds feature protective domes that enable you to see enemies without necessarily being able to engage them (or have them engage you) as well as low gravity that enables much easier use of the vertical. So each planet might suit certain outlaws or favour particular enemy types that can take advantage of them.

A lot of the gameplay seems to centre around switching between characters in certain situations. Talk a little about this mechanic and examples of situations where the player may need to switch characters?

In the world of Wild Bastards, each combat arena is surrounded by a "fence" that prevents more than one outlaw entering at once. Another outlaw can, however, teleport in to replace their partner at any time. This ability enables outlaws to operate as a tag team, swapping back and forth to make best use of their individual skills and state of health. What's cool about this is that you can put together these teams, combining outlaws to prop up each other's weaknesses or to combo their strengths. For example, you might pair Spider Rosa and Casino so that you can have Rosa deploy a decoy and then have Casino blast the enemies who have been distracted by it. Or you might pair Hopalong to take care of powerful individual enemies with his strangling lasso whilst keeping Preach on the bench with her gatling should you be swarmed by hosts of spirits.

The art style is absolutely stunning for Wild Bastards and I personally have always loved that cartoon/comic booky style. What were some of the artistic influences behind the game, and how does the art style help to create unique characters?

Of course, spaghetti westerns were a huge influence on the game's vibe. But also, a very specific retro sci-fi vision of the future that we might call "synthwave retro futurism", exemplified by media like Battle Beyond the Stars and prog-rock album covers. The characters reflect this mix - being born from thinking about what if we took a Western trope and projected into a future in which robots can be motivated by a colony of intelligent squirrels?

What is something that may surprise people when they play Wild Bastards?

I heard there is a relationship management aspect to the game. For instance certain outlaws might not get along therefore you cannot bring them both on a mission. Talk a little about the relationship management aspect of the game and how we can keep the crew happy.

The Wild Bastards were the deadliest and weirdest gang in the galaxy. But at the start of the game, 11 of them are dead and buried. It's your job to bring them back to life and reassemble the gang, but old grudges and the simple fact that some survived and others didn't make your life difficult. Feuding outlaws will refuse to work together - a problem that can be solved by obtaining cans of beans and getting the argumentative pair to sit down together and share some grub. If you have beans to spare, you can even use them to form pal bonds between outlaws. Pals will help each other out in combat showdowns so this can be very valuable. But don't expect any positive feelings to last together - they're a fractious bunch.

Thank you so much Jonathan for taking the time to chat with me! Having seen the reviews I would certainly advise everyone checking it out for some rootin' tootin' sci-fi shootin'!

Wild Bastards is available now on Ps5, Switch, Windows and Xbox Series X/S