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Deadbeat Heroes, released last week, and it took the indie community by storm. With a unique design and fun gameplay mechanics, it settled well with the community and has been gaining success over success ever since.

As such, I reached out to the two head developers of the game and get more information for us to know. Imkan Hayati, the co-founder of UpstreamArcade (Team behind Deadbeat Heroes) and art director of the game. Adam Langridge, the other co-founder of UpstreamArcade, and the code/design director. In turn, they were kind enough to grant us an interview and this is what they said.

Interview with the DEVs of Deadbeat Heroes

Q1: Where did the idea for DeadBeat Heroes come from?

A1: Imi – We’re big comic fans, especially of the Superhero variety and it was one day over a cup of coffee that we started talking about game ideas. One that stuck in our minds was a game where the hero had no powers of his own but could steal it from others, becoming a kind of Ice Man, Fire Star, Hulk or Magneto depending on who you stole it from. This got our imaginations going and soon we were designing the game that would become Deadbeat Heroes!


Q2: Why choose this specific art-style?

A2: Imi – We knew the game was going to be fast-paced, with multiple enemies on screen and lots of destruction. This meant that the art-style had to be clean and easy to read from a gameplay perspective with all that action taking place. The 1970 setting and the Superhero theming meant we could draw a lot of inspiration from around that time, especially from Comic books with their halftone printing, a feature that we embraced in the art style. Our main inspiration, however, has to have been the 60’s “Batman” TV Series, the vibrant colours, the wacky villains all influenced the direction of the art-style.

Q3: How have Square Enix Collective help with your game?

A3: Ad – They’ve been an enormous help. They’ve kind of done lots of the traditional publisher responsibilities (PR & Testing). As we’re such a small team we simply didn’t have the time to do lots of this, so it’s made a massive difference.

Q4: How did Square Enix Collective come across your title or company?

A4: Ad: We bumped into Phil (The director) at a game developer event in Guildford. Phil was giving a cool presentation and we were showing our game. It actually went really badly! We had trouble setting up our stand until right at the end of the event. Finally, when it was ready and as Phil was leaving I introduced us and showed the game. The rest is history.


Q5: What’s your favourite part of your game?

A5: Ad – That’s a difficult question, especially as we made it! I’m a massive fan of the daft jokes that our writer, James Leach came up with and it’s great hearing those. They still make me laugh.

Q6: Why a brawler?

A6: Ad – We’ve been itching to play a co-op brawler all about movement for years. We used to play loads of beat-em-ups at previous companies and wanted to add some of our thoughts to the genre.

Q7: If you could be a superhero, who would you be and why?

A7 (1): Imi – I’d have to say, Superman! He may not look as cool as Spidey, or Wolverine, but he’s got it all! He’s Strong, he’s got laser eyes, he’s pretty much invincible (except for Kryptonite), he can fly and his hair never messes up! What more could you want!

A7 (2): Ad – Spidey. Always spidey. In fact, I’d go for the future one – Spidey 2099! A better outfit and there are flying cars everywhere. Hang on, does that break the question?

Thank you, Imkan and Adam, for allow me to interview you. Deadbeat Heroes is currently available on the Xbox One and PC/Steam.