We sat down with Dave to discuss current happenings at his studio!

At Gamescom 2016, Daan chatted with various game developers about their upcoming games. Today, we talk to Dave Proctor from 13AM Games. They are hard at work on Runbow Pocket, but are also finding time to prepare Pirate Pop Plus for various platforms. We talk about this and more in the text below!

Daan Koopman (DK): I'm here with Dave Proctor of 13AM Games. How are you doing, good sir?

Dave Proctor (DP): Very good, Daan. Thank you.

DK: It hasn't been that long since we had a chat, in fact you can find a very, uh, interesting interview we did at E3. But this one is a bit more serious...

DP: Very serious.

DK: Very professional. Now, can you introduce yourself to people unfamiliar with your work?

DP: My name is Dave Proctor, and I'm a producer and one of the co-founders at 13AM Games. I, well we, worked on a game called Runbow for the Wii U, and we're working on Runbow Pocket for the New 3DS and publishing Pirate Pop Plus!, which is playable for the first time anywhere outside of Japan here at Gamescom.

DK: Runbow's coming to the New 3DS - what made you want to put it on a handheld? Did this step seem natural?

DP: Yeah, the Nintendo fanbase are incredibly supportive and really excited fans, that was the first thing they asked for even before the game came out. "When's it coming to 3DS? When's it coming to handheld?" Nintendo really wanted to be a part of it too. That was the next logical step, was to make a really huge impression with a really loyal fanbase on Wii U and then give them a chance to play the game on the go.

DK: We talked about possible functionality in the last interview, do you have anything nailed down now? What's up with that?

DP: We are finalizing the online functionality and what the multiplayer will be like. I'm not sure what I committed to last time, but there will be multiplayer, that is a guarantee. The shape of what that is - we are still working with Unity Games Japan who are helping to bring the game to New 3DS-

DK: Right.

DP: -within the next couple of weeks we'll have a full feature plan and more information to show you guys.

DK: Most of it's the same except for Color Master mode, which is obvious - what other things make this version unique?

DP: Our goal with Runbow Pocket was to bring the fullness of the original game to the New 3DS, and apart from changing Color Master that's what we were excited about. We are trying to make a unique StreetPass experience as well, and we'll have more on that soon. The main thing is that we want people to pick it up and sit down next to their friends and play it, and have all of the fun of Runbow on the go.

DK: Both the Wii U and New 3DS versions are coming to retail in North America. Is that the same for Europe, or will it remain digital?

DP: We are... one of my many goals for Gamescom was to meet with European distributors. We are absolutely interested in bringing both versions to Europe for physical release. Who is going to do that is what we're working on right now, but it's actually one of our big goalsto make sure Europeans can buy both versions in a store.

DK: Another game that you're publishing is Pirate Pop Plus!. How did this collabo(ration) with Dadako Studios come about?

DP: We had talked about expanding our company, being able to use the things we learned developing a game for a console or multiple consoles and bring them to developers who may not be interested in bringing the game to a console. As well, Hawken came from Dadako Studios and met Alex at TGS last year and Alex saw Pirate Pop Plus and he fell in love with it, he brought it home, we all fell in love with it and a long and beautiful romance started to bloom. We play it constantly in the office, and we love it as much as Runbow which is really important to us that we can still sit down, still have fun with Runbow. But we're maybe too addicted to Pirate Pop Plus right now.

DK: The game, for those who haven't seen it, seems like a stylized version of Pang. What does Pirate Pop Plus do to keep people entertained?

DP: Pang, that classic shoot 'em up and target spinning, a briiliant mechanic. Pirate Pop Plus kind of turns it on its head by adding gravity inversion. Your enemy in the game, Bubble Pirate, who by the way has trapped all the residents of the small seaside town in bubbles. Sorry for the lore bomb there, guys. *laughs* He will change the gravity and sometimes force you on the walls or force you on the ceiling, and the speed with which he does this and the unpredictable nature of it is what makes the game more difficult and changes that classic Buster Bros arcade experience into something entirely new. Plus like you said, it's a stylized game, it's not just about playing the game, it's about imagining that you have this little handheld game in your hands and customizing the look of the handheld game in Pirate Pop Plus itself.

DK: The game has the look of an old-school handheld game with the music to boot - is there other trickery to keep old-school gamers engaged in that fashion?

DP: So it's not just chiptune sounding music, this is chiptune music made in Famitracker. If I wanted to, I could play it in a Game Boy. It is pure, original, and made by four different artists one of whom is Dan Rodriguez who made Runbow's music, Matthew Eidix and Jinz who's a chiptune artist in Japan and Harry Waters who's also a chiptune artist in Japan and whose father is Roger Waters which is a fun connection. (Note: Roger Waters founded Pink Floyd. - Ed) Retro fans will remember the feeling of having your Game Boy, putting stickers on it, customizing it, making it your own. You can do that in Pirate Pop Plus, you can change the color of the pocket game system, change the color of the buttons, you can add stickers, we put a bunch of decals in there. You can unlock new music, unlock new characters. There's enough there that anyone that used to have a handheld game they loved and always went back to, that's what Pirate Pop Plus is.

DK: And that's all the stuff you can get in the shop, and there's more stuff you can get?

DP: Absolutely. Tons of stuff to unlock, tons of reasons to come back and keep playing, playing, playing.

DK: And there's unlockable playable characters, right?

DP: Yeah, there are unlockable playable characters. Your core character is Pete Jr, who's a little bit of a lazy pirate who wakes up and discovers he has to save the world. You can also play as Shynot, who moves a little bit slower but he gets more points, and Dave - not named after me, but he does kind of look like me, so I'm going to say it's named after me - moves a little slower but he has a peg leg. He moves a little slower, but he has more health, so it's a constant tradeoff. There's a fourth character, who I guarantee your fans know, that will be announced right before we launch. Coming soon.

DK: Interesting. Is there anything you want to tell us about Pirate Pop Plus or even Runbow Pocket, something we haven't discussed?

DP: So Pirate Pop Plus, so everyone knows, is coming to Wii U and New 3DS as a crossbuy title. If you buy either version, you will get the other - buy Wii U, get New 3DS, buy New 3DS and get the Wii U version for one price. The price is... I don't know the conversion right now, but US$5 is about €3.50, something around there. We're also bringing the game to Steam if for some reason visitors to Nintendo World Report don't have a Nintendo console. As for Runbow Pocket, we're still working very, very hard at it, we have new announcements coming as we're able to give them to our fans. Follow us on Twitter and we'll give them to you right away.

DK: That's @13amgames. So what does the future hold for 13AMGames after Runbow Pocket?

DP: I don't know. More Runbow? It looks good, we've got some... when I one day am allowed to talk about what we've been working on, it'll be a really good day. I think you guys are gonna like what we're doing next.

DK: OK!

DP: I'm giving faces... for now, you can think of us as the #1 source for all Runbow related content in the universe.

DK: Thank you very much for your time!