Interview with the Developer of Kabuto Park
I’m not a bug person, I’ll be the first to admit it. They give me major ick. But, that doesn’t mean that I don’t love them virtually. That is, in game form like in Doot and Zakku’s bite-sized title Kabuto Park.
This is a game that we were so excited to have in the showcase because we loved the team’s previous game Minami Lane. Thank you so much to Zakku and Doot for being a part of the showcase and to Doot for answering my questions!
Can you tell me more about the team behind Kabuto Park and how it first came about?
The team is mostly Zakku and me, Doot! Zakku does the music and sounds and helps with game design, and I do programming, art, game design, project management, marketing, and all the other stuff needed to make a game. We already worked together on two previous games, Froggy’s Battle and Minami Lane.
On Minami Lane, the main artist was Blibloop, and she’s here to help this time too! She taught me how to draw silly things, and she also did a few backgrounds for the game and most kid’s portraits. Then, the cartoonist and graphic artist Eupholie did the key art for the game. And finally, a lot of very nice people online helped a lot by playtesting the game.
I love all sorts of animals and critters, and wanted to do a small creature collection game. I was inspired by games like Boku No Natsuyasumi, Alba, Flock or Chillquarium, and at first I wanted to do a bird game. I had trouble putting together a strong fantasy, so I thought about what other animals could fit for some simple gameplay of capture and fight. Beetles and bugs seemed perfect! I loved Animal Crossing beetle’s collection and MushiKing still fascinates me. This game is also an homage to the garden of my childhood where I saw many Greater Stag Beetles every summer.
Both Kabuto Park and your previous title Minami Lane are bite-sized games. What’s the key to making a great bite-sized game?
Oh my, I could go on for hours about this, but I’ll try to keep it simple.
For me, the key to making bite-sized games is to prioritize making a “bite-sized” game over the “perfect” game. This “tiny game” approach has to be there all the time. Of course, you need to have a game scope and pitch that seems so tiny you believe you could do it in a few days, but then every design decision you take during development also has to be done with that in mind. “I have those problems in my game, the obvious solution seems to be to add this or change that, but what could I do that would be radically different and take me much less time?” This way of thinking is often hard because you feel like you leave a lot of things undone but it also leads to interesting ideas.
I also want to insist on one thing: making small games is about making small things, not making them fast. Don’t overwork, it’s bad for you and everyone around you.
How does deckbuilding work in Kabuto Park? How does battling work?
Deckbuilding and battles are kept very simple in Kabuto Park. You fight with a team of 3 bugs, and each one has 3 abilities, represented by cards. Your deck consists of those 9 cards, and you draw them randomly during fights!
Battling is a mix of real time and card battles. Each team of bugs pushes the other one after another. There are some simple stats that define how well your team pushes and holds or the speed at which you gain energy. You can then use this energy to play your cards that influence the battle. Those can give stat boosts, push the opposing team away with kicks or many different special effects!
The game is not strategically deep, I wanted to focus on the feeling of being proud of your little bugs. I wanted players to win a fight and say, “Yaay I have the cutest and strongest bugs, go team!” rather than “Mmmh, I have a very big brain”.
What are some upgrades that players can purchase in the game?
Bugs can be leveled up to boost their battle stats.
Then, there is a shop where you can upgrade your bug catching material! Buy new boots to get access to more destinations and unique bugs, a new nest to make capture easier, or some bug books to up your chances of seeing rare bugs!
You can catch more than 40 bug species in the game. If you had to choose, which one is your favorite?
That’s hard, but I think I’ll go with a basic, the Greater Stag Beetle. I live in France and saw a lot of those in our garden when I was a kid, and loved to take them in my hands and feel their little legs gripping. They are both so cute and look so fierce! Sadly, they are starting to become rarer and smaller because of the destruction of their habitats.
What is an important lesson you learned while making your previous titles, that you used to help during development of Kabuto Park?
It’s a bit weird, but I feel like the more I make games, the more I trust my feelings and intuitions? I’m not sure I’m learning hard lessons or truths that I could put on paper, as each game is very different and I’m changing too. But on my first games, I sometimes felt paralyzed in front of big decisions, while now I’m more like “Eh let’s try this, I won’t ever know what’s the best choice but I feel like it.” It feels better!
Also playtests are incredibly vital in the way I make games. This is not really a lesson but more a confirmation, I’ll continue doing many of them, it helps me so much.
What does “indie” mean to you?
There are so many ways to make indie games, and what I actually like is that it’s almost impossible to give a definition of “indie”. Every indie dev I meet has an entirely different context and way of making games. At first it was a bit terrifying: there is no rulebook, how am I going to make it! Now I feel the opposite: it’s so nice to carve your own path.
Making indie games has always been difficult, and with the industry collapsing, it’s really hard to make “traditional” indie games now, with the help and funding of a publisher for example. However, we see more and more tiny homemade games getting the attention they deserve and I’m very happy about that!
Kabuto Park is available to wishlist on Steam now and there is a demo available.