What kind of game is Curses N Chaos, J-dog?

It’s a single screen 2 player co-op fantasy retro brawler!



Fantastic! What would you say is retro about it?

Definitely the look. We went with the smallest widescreen resolution possible before it started to look too abstract. Most of the sprites have only 3 colors and a transparency as well as a 16x16 size so they wouldn’t look out of place in like an NES game.The style of game is very retro too. We played a lot of single screen games like Bubble Bobble, Mario Brothers and Balloon Fight and wanted to make something inspired from that restriction.

Is there anything you’ve learned or leveled-up in terms of working with those smaller sprites and palettes?

None of our sprites have contours and as odd as it might seem it was a big difference from having made so many sprites with them for so long. Animating is always fun though regardless of size but I really loved working on such tiny sprites. Stephane Boutin our resident art wizard initially found the 240x135 resolution to be too small to work with but in the end he really knocked it out of the park. I’d even say its some of his best work yet.

I’ve played a fair amount and would say it’s not an easy game so is the difficulty level also retro?

Yes! That’s something that seems to be missing from the gaming landscape, games that really throw a meaty challenge at the player. Also, this was always going to be a smaller game so we didn’t want to have players finish it too quickly.

But recent games that are known for their challenge like the Dark Souls series served as a good reminder that people really love a challenge.



I heard there’s crafting in this game. Is this true? Are you you funnin’ me?

Yeah, there is some crafting but it really is just to break up the action and have players make stuff to help them along if they’re having trouble. We didn’t want to get too deep with it.

But there is some cool story stuff we did with the alchemy system that ties the story together.

And Alison the Alchemist who really lives in those moments between the action is a really fun character. As are all the characters in the game! I feel like the universe in which the game inhabits is really solid.

Very cool! When can we expect the game?

Early summer!

Thanks for your time, Justin!

Thank you!

