Tag: Sentai »

Behold Studios, creators of the IGF-nominated Knights of Pen & Paper are in the process of making their second game, Chroma Squad; a turn-based manager game that is heavily-inspired by the "sentai" shows of the 80's and 90's - such as Power Rangers. And of course, it will feature plenty of the pixel art that helped to define Knights of Pen & Paper as well.

Behold has launched a Kickstarter project for the game, and as it enters its final stretch I reached out to Saulo Camarotti to discuss the genesis of the idea, and why they'd Kickstart the game.

148Apps: How did the idea of Chroma Squad come about?
Saulo Camarotti (SC): After making a project like Knights of Pen & Paper, with a lot of references from our childhood, we thought that we could make a game with a theme that inspired us very much when we were ten. So, after thinking about the sentai team, we realized that we could go meta-language with it, and that came to the idea of managing a sentai TV studio.

148Apps: What are you attempting to do with the gameplay of Chroma Squad that you didn't do with Knights of Pen & Paper?
SC: We want more depth. We know that Knights is a great game, but it's limited when you try to customize your experience. In Chroma Squad, we want that the player could customize everything in his studio, and make a sentai team of his dreams. So we're planning in skill trees, items, color and jumpsuits options.

148Apps: Why go with Kickstarter for Chroma Squad? Did the popularity of Knights of Pen & Paper push you in one way or the other with this decision?
SC: Yeah sure! We wanted to make a game with the help of the community. With a Kickstarter project we would listen to all feedback and promote a game where the community felt that they belong to it. We want to create a nostalgic experience, and for that, we need all the help. With the previous experience with Knights, we managed to get a lot of posts and reviews in major websites, and this was one the biggest reasons for our project success on Kickstarter.

148Apps: Now that the Kickstarter is a success, do you feel any different pressure in developing this game versus Knights of Pen & Paper?
SC: Sure thing. When we did Knights, no one knew that the game was being developed, and no one had great expectations from our team. But now, we need to deliver what they expect us to. We really hope that we don't frustrate any one =) For us, the game is already awesome!

Why target PC platforms before mobile this time around?
SC: We wanted to make a deeper experience, and for that we wanted to use a bigger screen for the game. That's why we're just releasing it for PC, Consoles, and Tablets.

Thanks to Saulo for his time. If you're interested in helping Behold Studios to get Chroma Squad (hopefully out in December of this year) funded, head on over to their Kickstarter page!