To be completely honest, Sabotage Studio's The Messenger completely snuck up on us at Gamasutra. But today on the Gamasutra Twitch channel, with some prodding from our friends at Devolver Digital, we were surprised to discover it's a unique side-scroller that stands out from a sea of competitors both by aping a early '90s console aesthetic, but also by borrowing modern, fluid ideas for gameplay and animation.

That's just the tip of the iceberg in a game that also boasts a mechanic which switches between 8- and 16-bit layers of the game, and we were lucky enough to explore all of these ideas with game director Thierry Boulanger earlier today on the Gamasutra Twitch channel.

If you're a game designer working in two-dimensional spaces (especially in your game's animation), you should not hesitate to watch our full chat, which is now embedded up above!

And while you're at it, be sure to follow the Gamasutra Twitch channel for more developer interviews, editor roundtables and gameplay commentary.