Interview with the Team Behind Fraymakers
As huge fans of games like Super Mash Bros. we absolutely love the look of Fraymakers and were super stoked to have them as part of the showcase. Who doesn’t love beating up indie characters AS indie characters?
A huge thank you to the Fraymakers team for answering my questions.
Can you tell me about the team behind Fraymakers and how you got started working on the game?
Our core team has worked together for over a decade now. We were originally brought together by our shared interest in the Super Smash Bros. series, and alongside many other contributors we worked together to develop Super Smash Flash 2, our Smash Bros. fangame. From there, interest brewed from a few developers to begin working on a new project, one where we could bring the skills we had been honing for years to the table, and a pixel art indie platform fighter was just short of a no brainer considering the team’s shared interests.
Fraymakers was part of a successful Kickstarter campaign. Congrats! How has feedback been from players before and after the Kickstarter? Has the team taken player feedback into account while updating and working on the game?
Thank you! One of the main reasons we ran a Kickstarter campaign and went on to launch as an Early Access title was so we could involve our community in the game’s development as soon as possible. From that point onward, we’ve made a ton of changes based on community feedback, including bug reports and suggestions for content additions and other adjustments. Our playerbase is super passionate and comes up with a lot of great ideas - these days, we consider their feedback in almost everything we do!
What has the process been like to include some of indie games’ biggest icons into Fraymakers? Were the other teams excited to have their character be a part of Fraymakers?
Typically, we just reach out to a game’s developers and ask if they’d be interested! In our experience, indie devs tend to be amazing collaborators. They’re generally exceptionally kind, open and (nearly) as excited about the process as we are! Devs are often very busy people, so we really appreciate the time they’ve set aside to review our work or even just check in for fun to see how things are going.
The trailer that you’ve included in our showcase introduced three new assist characters to the game: Vi, Leif and Kabbu from Bug Fables. Are there any updates on the way to add more characters?
Absolutely! We just shared in a Kickstarter update that we have two additional playable characters nearing completion, with some substantial progress on a third new character as well. We also have tons of other content in the pipeline, including assists, stages and more. We’re planning to continue to support the game with new content for as long as we can, and can’t wait to see everyone’s reactions to what we have cooking!
What’s an important lesson that you’ve learned while you’ve developed the game?
Going into the project, we didn’t fully know how amenable other indie teams would be to the concept of entrusting their characters to us. It was probably the scariest thing for us early on - without a cast of indie characters, Fraymakers couldn’t exist at all! We learned that indie developers tend to be super friendly and approachable, and thankfully many of them believed in our vision and were excited to take part.
What does “indie” mean to you?
To us, indie always has and continues to mean community. From the teams of developers tirelessly dedicating themselves to their projects or the players who passionately support their favorite niche titles, I can’t think of a single other community I’d rather be a part of.
Fraymakers is available on Steam now.