Character animation, meanwhile, harks back to Roobarb, a British cartoon created by Bob Godfrey in the mid-1970s. The show had a lively, stop-motion look; characters zipped and squirmed around the screen as if they had just received an electrostatic shock. Crowle redrew his characters several times to create a similar effect. The game cycles through the different versions, or poses, for similar natural look known as "line boil." You can see it in Nessa's bright orange hair bouncing around in the wind, or the puffins rocking back and forth on the shoreline.

"We wanted to make sure that the 1980s influence was more nuanced."

Knights and Bikes was originally conceived as a "Goonies RPG." It's a bright, imaginative game, but Crowle and Yu have been careful not to misrepresent the 1980s. "There's a lot of nostalgia culture out there," Crowle explained during a GDC talk, "that makes out that when the clock struck 12 on the first day of 1980, everybody got a DeLorean, changed into a neon shirt and went and looked at unicorns. It's a lot more nuanced than that. You had to have money to keep up with trends, and because it's set in an economically challenged area, we wanted to make sure that the eighties influence was more nuanced."

Crowle and Yu have a long history in video games. The former started his career at Lionhead, working on the Creature Isle expansion for Black and White, the original Fable, and a bunch of unreleased games including B.C. and the music-shooter Unity. "Lionhead was an incredible meeting of the most talented people I've probably ever met," he said. A bunch of Lionhead employees then formed Media Molecule, which Crowle worked with on a freelance basis. He was a production designer for the first two LittleBigPlanet games, then joined full-time to direct Tearaway and its PS4 variant, Tearaway Unfolded.

Yu, meanwhile, grew up in Anaheim, California. He joined Insomniac straight out of UCLA and worked as a level programmer on the third Ratchet & Clank game, Up Your Arsenal. After the combat-heavy sequel, Deadlocked, Yu was asked to be lead gameplay programmer on Tools of Destruction, the series' first entry on the PS3. It was a management-style role, and by the end Yu realized that he wanted to be more hands-on again. So he moved to the UK, joined Media Molecule and helped out with the original LittleBigPlanet. He later formed his own company, BitMinion, and worked for Mind Candy developer Moshi Monsters.