Interview with the Developer of Scaravan 66
Scarvan 66 is the kind of game that just screams, “This is gonna be bad ass.” And, seeing as the Six One Indie team are all bad asses, we were super excited to have Scarvan 66 in the showcase.
A huge thank you to Lithic Entertainment for answering my questions!
Can you tell me about the team behind Scarvan 66?
What started off as a group of three of us working for free in our spare time on our first game, Dwarrows, slowly grew during the development of Scaravan 66 into a team of 12. All of us (except our composer) hail from various cities around Ontario, Canada.
At Lithic, we’ve always had to be scrappy and resourceful to do what we’re doing and we’re self-described, “too dumb to quit”. (Words I base my entire life around). I keep the downsides just enough in my peripheral so that I can’t stare them straight down and choke, but I’m also aware enough to steady the course. The biggest setback to this is that it makes us (my partner Alain and I) too stubborn to attempt smaller games so we usually make a pretty large game for whatever our team size is at that time. Frankly, we don’t like to compromise on the vision we have because we really want to make games that we’d actually enjoy playing. As the team grows we try to keep that pressure on ourselves rather than the team members because we realize we live a little nutso bananas.
What inspired the high octane gameplay of Scaravan 66? Were there any games you used as inspiration?
Obviously with plenty of fantastic retro car combat games from which to draw inspiration, like Road Rash, Twisted Metal, and Interstate ‘76, we did already have plenty to begin referencing in terms of gameplay. What really inspired the entire vibe, and initial reason to create the game was the fast-paced, in-your-face attitude of Psychobilly music. For the uninitiated Psychobilly is like if you took 1950s rock’n’roll, slammed in some 80s-90s punk rock pacing and guitars and had the band filled by horror trope rockers with a menthol addiction.
In a roguelike, you often die and come back stronger on your next run. What kind of things can players take with them between runs or upgrade between runs to help them the next time they head out onto the road?
Every time you fail a run, the player gets sent back to the Junkyard, where if they have acquired enough currency (junk parts) they can head over to the Garage and upgrade just about anything. Health, shields, speed bursts, weapons, etc. My personal favourite to upgrade is anything to do with the Ram Attack. There is a distinct satisfaction in getting to check another vehicle straight off the road and into the trees.
Lucky is a greaser sentenced to an eternity of reaping souls. Clearly, there’s a story there. Will players get to know more about Lucky and the people around her during the game?
Players will absolutely get to know more about Lucky and the rest of the cast. Without spoiling much, it’s a ridiculous action packed existential crisis story with a little light philosophy thrown in. All set to the pace of a shoot-first ask questions later kind of very flawed protagonist who doesn’t have the patience to to think things through or at all for all she cares.
To give a bit more of an idea, Lucky D starts out as a rugged and selfish individualist with a chip on her shoulder. Bit of that loner cowboy trope. Lucky, with no real need for self-preservation, and an innately reckless attitude is ready to stick it to anyone or thing that gets in her way. She’ll evolve, but she learns every lesson the hard way.
In Scarvan 66, you have to make strategic stops and visit allies. What kind of things can players expect at these stops?
So there are a few possibilities at the pit stops currently. For the most part you are either running into other Reapers (temporary upgrade givers) or shop owners at diners or motels (Heals, etc). Reapers give very different upgrades, depending on and themed by the giver themselves. One of my favourites stylistically is Mimosa Ron. A retiree who died on his way to a cruise and refuses to do any work as a reaper, besides the barest possible squeak-by minimum, so that he can relax and enjoy himself like he was supposed to before his accident that wound him up dead and in eternal servitude as a Road Reaper. All of his upgrades have delightful cocktail themes for instance.
While stopped, the player gets a little chance for dialogue which slowly world-builds and lets the player get to know more about the Road Reaper’s personality, quirks, and their background story.
What kinds of permanent upgrades can players unlock during the game?
Expanding more on my favourite kind of upgrades, the ones for the Ram Attack. You can increase how many times you can do it in a row before needing a cooldown, which is fantastic for people like me who are trigger-happy/button-mashy with dodging and slamming into other vehicles. Another great permanent upgrade related to the ram attack is decreasing how long that it takes to cooldown. You can see the belligerent strategy here is to slam into other cars as much and as often as possible. That’s a really fun way to play, but there are a lot of different kinds of builds that you can create because of all the different kinds of upgrades that you can do. Someone might specifically choose to use a shotgun and increase their precision and damage with that weapon, for example.
What kind of car would you want to drive if you were permanently stuck with one in your afterlife?
Honestly, if I had a chance to choose which car to drive in the afterlife it wouldn’t be one of these sexy fast muscle cars because I’d be too annoyingly practical about it. Get me a giant camper van with a flush toilet and a full sized queen bed. I need a kitchenette to make my morning coffee or the devil themselves couldn’t get me up for anything. I would be rocking way more of that Mimosa Ron vibe of a permanent afterlife vacation in a camper painted in a colour Barbie would appreciate.
What does “indie” mean to you?
Simply put, what “indie” means to me is being a scrappy little-guy with their creative vision still in their own control. It means getting to take creative risks and wearing more hats than anyone is ever supposed to or should in one career.
Scaravan 66 is available to wishlist on Steam right now.