What motivated such a striking contrast between the game’s vibrant visuals and its somber storyline and emotional themes? POD: Bastion is, visually speaking, a very beautiful game, yet the story of Caelondia and the Calamity has very melancholy undertones. This type of approach I think has a good likelihood of producing results that feel specific rather than derivative or cliché. Our process is about coming up with a rich and interesting thematic core and an idea for the feel of the play experience, then gradually working our way towards that bit by bit until the game feels complete. Even in the context of an action RPG structure, we did not take a single design choice for granted. We didn’t worry much about being too close to other games because we don’t do design-by-genre or use any one or two or five games as reference points. We wanted to do something interesting with the narrative, using methods only possible through the medium of games. One of the opportunities we saw as we were getting into making downloadable games is that not many of them attempt much in the way of story. Regardless, it’s a style of game we love a lot as a team, and we came from having worked on real-time strategy games, so it represented a refreshing change of pace. KASAVIN: While the action RPG genre is certainly popular, we still felt and continue to feel that it’s underexplored, at least relative to other popular genres like shooters or platformers. What made you decide to go with an action RPG for Bastion? As a small studio, how did you plan to set yourselves apart to avoid getting lost in the hack’n'slash shuffle? POD: The action RPG genre has seen a ton of recent entries. We picked his brain for insight into the creative process that spawned such a unique title, and were fortunate to receive some very insightful commentary in his reply, which you can read after the jump! You may remember not too long ago we published our impressions of the game, where we made our high opinions very apparent – it’s clear that Bastion redefines what arcade titles are capable of in terms of narrative and emotional impact. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Greg Kasavin, creative designer and writer for Bastion over at Supergiant Games. Questions from Patrick Lindsey of our partner site: Pixels or Death Supergiant Games’ Summer of Arcade leadoff hit Bastion is definitely one of those things. While it may seem that we here at Pixels or Death are overflowing with negativity, this is not at all the case.
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