Maybe you've heard about one of the new fighters that's coming out called Brawlout. It's a platform brawler like Super Smash Bros., but still different.

I got into contact with one of the developers of Brawlout, Bogdan Iliesiu, to ask him a few questions about the development process. If you are interested in trying out the game, it is currently available for Steam Early Access.

The game will also be coming out for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. It will supposedly come out on the Nintendo Switch later this year. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions will come later.

Interestingly enough, Hyper Light Drifter is a character that belongs to another developer. The game appears to be featuring "3rd party characters."

Since we haven't received an announcement for Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo Switch yet, this could be the brawler to tide you over until then. Fans of the series should feel pretty familiar with the mechanics of the game.

Hit the jump below to check out my interview with the Brawlout dev.

AdaptiveTrigger: What are your own experiences with the Super Smash Bros. series?

Bogdan Iliesiu: I first played Super Smash Bros for Wii U, casually with friends.

When I saw how deep the mechanics and skillset went, I also picked up Super Smash Bros Melee, which is one of the most technically demanding fighters out there (for so many reasons, including the super precise inputs required to play at a pro level, lack of buffers, movement speed when linking the right moves, etc.).

I also grew up with games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, which is why we decided to design the combat moves more around traditional fighting games, and mix that with the movement options found in platform-fighters.

AdaptiveTrigger: What inspired you to create your own take on the platform brawler genre?

Bogdan Iliesiu: We really wanted to make a competitive, online, action game, with vastly different play styles/characters and lots of combo options. Looking at traditional fighters, they are way more technical, and less fun to watch or play at a pro level than the crazy platform fighter games.

We also have way more freedom in designing over-the-top moves and combat strategies that use the environment when developing a platform fighter.

AdaptiveTrigger: So, Brawlout is going to be released for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and the PlayStation 4 while it is already available for Early Access on Steam.

Is it fair to say that this is a rather ambitious task? How has this process fared thus far?

Bogdan Iliesiu: We wanted to bring Brawlout to Nintendo's new platform first when we saw how much fun it was to play the game on the console, and how perfect the setup would be to play on the go.

Being a new IP, and also heavily multiplayer/online focused, it’s much easier for us to reach a wider audience when launching on Nintendo Switch, because there aren’t many hardcore online games on the platform yet.

Aside from pro players, we also wanted the game to appeal to casual gamers and those looking for a good party-game option. Nintendo Switch is kind of the go-to console for that now.

The Early Access version on Steam was incredibly useful to get early fan feedback, on all game mechanics and specially to fine-tune the balance on each character.

We try to update the game every couple of weeks, based on our top players’ feedback, and we’re always on discord.gg/Brawlout, where we are open to new ideas.

Playstation 4 and Xbox One won't be far behind, and it's been a ton of work but we want all gamers to have the opportunity to try it!

The aim of the Early Access launch is to get it to a really fun and balanced place, and slow down on tweaking balance figures after the console launch. This way top players can perfect their skills and we wouldn’t be interfering with their strategies with new updates.

As soon as we launched, we had a ton of requests for adding ledge grabs. That was an easy decision and we quickly added it, as it made the game more fun for newcomers and more technical for the pro players.

AdaptiveTrigger: What have been your goals while developing Brawlout?

Bogdan Iliesiu: The goal is to make a super fun experience, for the growing competitive scene, as well as for the casual fan and the newcomer looking to make their mark.

We wanted to iterate on the platform fighting genre, bring our own character playstyles, different battle dynamics, and add robust, modern online tools like: amazing networking; live match streaming; online replays; and the Brawlout Network of fighters.

AdaptiveTrigger: What has been your greatest challenge in developing Brawlout?

Bogdan Iliesiu: On the technical side, it’s game development as usual, with hard parts, extremely hard parts, and also super fun parts (like designing the characters and their moves).

Our biggest challenge right now is progressing with the final feature-complete game, while constantly updating the Early Access version based on pro players feedback, going to live events and also watching live streams, to find out where mechanics or balancing could be improved.

Player feedback is extremely important, even if it takes time away from actual development, because we want to make sure we’re delivering the gamers will love and play for many many years.

AdaptiveTrigger: What is your favorite character in the Super Smash Bros. series and who is your favorite in Brawlout? How much inspiration was taken from character playstyles?

Bogdan Iliesiu: We really tried not to look to Super Smash Bros characters for inspiration. Rather, we played and watched other traditional fighting games, and designed our characters on those fighting game archetypes.

Because we’re not developing an actual Super Smash Bros sequel, we had all the liberty to remove any movement or combat feature we found extraneous, make our game feel more fast paced, and to design our characters to stand out.

There are, of course, similarities, because all characters have directional attacks, and need to perform them on ground and in the air.

For Hyper Light Drifter, his Deflect move was one of his iconic moves, and it made so much sense to turn it into something similar to Fox’s Shine in Smash. The Drifter has been compared to Fox plus Marth, with better movement options.

With all that said, my favorite Smash character would be Sheik, because they're super-fast. Just like my other favorite character in Brawlout, Sephi’ra.

AdaptiveTrigger: Who’s the best Brawlout player on the dev team right now? What about outside of the dev team (if applicable)? Are there any Brawlout "pros" yet?

Bogdan Iliesiu: Hodor, our networking guy, is most probably the best on the team. He practiced so much, and has some tricky combos he manages to pull off in all sort of scenarios.

If you also consider our UK and US community managers, they are way better than us. We held a "beat a dev" contest at Super Smash Con, and only one person was able to beat our US community guy, Craig (RoboLeader).

And that was only when he played teams, with me on his team… they're really good.

Our top player in the US is "Ozumi," if you look at tournament results, or "Lizardheart," if you look at the ranked leaderboard. Ozumi is now a sponsored player.

In Europe, we have a few uber-skilled players, like "Volta," "ConR," or "Syphon."

AdaptiveTrigger: How are balance decisions made? How is it determined that a character is either too strong or too weak?

Bogdan Iliesiu: That’s mainly based on our top players feedback. If any move is broken or annoying in tournaments, we try to quickly address it.

We always watch the live tournament streams, to make sure the issues are real and to listen to critiques players have. When releasing the new Character Variants, which are planned to be released this November, they’ll have totally different stats, new looks and also some new special moves.

Our beta testers initially found some of them to have OP moves, but they had other weaknesses. We took a hard look at how to balance their pros and cons, and to give players the option to pick whatever their favorite variant is.

AdaptiveTrigger: Were there any predictions on how the meta would turn out during development? What actually happened with the meta that you noticed?

Bogdan Iliesiu: As we add new features, like ledge grabs, the meta changed quite a bit. All characters were designed to be able to recover to the stage, with long recovery moves, air dashes and more air mobility, even without the ledge grabs.

Initially we did that, to keep the action focused mid-stage, and avoid those ledge-grab strategies found in pro-level Smash games, where most of the match is played off-stage. That’s more technical, but it’s less viewer friendly, especially for newcomers.

After many players requested it, we added the ledge grab feature, and this week we also added teching (coming to Nintendo Switch and Steam with the Character Variants update). We’ll have to see how those change the meta again.

AdaptiveTrigger: As I understand it, Hyper Light Drifter is a character that hails from a different developer. How was the process of getting this combatant into Brawlout? Are there plans to work with other indie developers in the future?

Bogdan Iliesiu: Ever since we settled on the various play styles we wanted to add, we knew we needed an amazing sword fighter. With a sword fighter, you get those disjointed hitboxes, which bring a new experience and strategy.

The Drifter from the indie gem "Hyper Light Drifter" had such an amazing kit, and it was one of the dream characters we all loved. We were lucky that Alex from Heart Machine (the HLD developer) is a hardcore fighting game fan, and really loved Brawlout when he tried it out.

Working on integrating Hyper Light Drifter was a long process, even if we had clear design ideas for most of his moves. In all, it took us over 8 months to finish him from modeling, creating animations, and then to the final, mechanical balancing.

We’re also polishing a brand new guest character, ready for the Nintendo Switch launch, with rampant personality and brawler skills; they feel right at home in Brawlout.

AdaptiveTrigger: How was it decided that there be no universal block option?

Bogdan Iliesiu: We’ve focused on more fast paced battles, quick movement and a lot more aggressive combat styles for all characters. Brawlout is combo oriented, with block and grab buttons totally removed, and this takes away the defensive playstyles found in Smash.

Instead of having to read the opponent’s moves, and reacting to them (in the rock-paper-scissor / attack-block-grab style), all you need to focus on is your movement flow and anticipating your opponent’s trajectory around the stage.

Why do you think players should dedicate time to Brawlout when they could be playing Smash Bros. instead? Essentially, what type of experience can Brawlout create that Smash Bros. can't?

Bogdan Iliesiu: Although Smash players would find it easy to slide into Brawlout as all their experience and muscle memory would easily carry over, Brawlout is much more action oriented and geared towards keeping characters moving.

It's easier for new players to jump in and not just get wrecked by friends who've had a bit more practice (we all have that friend who always wants to play Smash because they're really good, but it gets boring when they destroy you every time).

Easy to learn, difficult to master, which we think is a good way to appeal to people outside of pros.

We avoided creating a direct Smash Bros, instead bringing in new gameplay mechanics and new play styles, while still being loosely based on the inputs and platforming mechanics they already love.

The Smash community is one of the most amazing communities out there. It’s very personal, and that’s what keeps them attending every single event.

It's rare these days, with all the online games available, to develop these close, personal relationships between players.

The Smash community got there from games like Melee, which don’t offer the smooth modern online networking, and instead makes them gather in-person for fun experiences.

We don’t realistically expect the top Smash players to switch over to Brawlout, but it’s super easy to pick up our game as a fun alternative, which they could play in their free time, or join our many friendly weekly tournaments.

Plus it feels great to take your worn GameCube [editor's note: controller?] from one pocket, your Nintendo Switch from your other, and start playing Brawlout anywhere!