Nothing beats a good Metroidvania. No, seriously—you tell me another genre that can live on for decades, one that continues to see unique gameplay and setting ideas with each new game from hundreds of developers across the globe. Many of these games have long-since surpassed the quality of Nintendo’s ‘Metroid’ game series, but this isn’t a competition; many of these games bounces ideas off one another in ways that can only be great for gamers. Now, one such developer fans of Metroidvania and Eurasian-focused gaming might take familiarity with is Team Ladybug.
Team Ladybug is a solo developer that has developed plenty of great 2D Metroidvania titles, though western players may know them by ‘Touhou Luna Nights‘ and ‘Record of Lodoss War-Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth-‘, but the developer is more well-known within the Asian side of the gaming hemisphere–though he hopes to change that with more releases that are available globally day one and through the creation of new intellectual property like ‘DRAINUS‘ and ‘BLADE CHIMERA’.
Never in my life would I have thought I’d be able to learn more about the developer of ‘KonoSuba: Fukkatsu no Beldia’, my first encounter with Team Ladybug’s work, within the far reaches of the internet, but here we are! Check out the interview below with the developer of the now available 2D Metroidvania ‘BLADE CHIMERA’ along with his producer Saito-san.
Heads up! This interview’s format has been modified for clarity and grammar clean-up but otherwise remains unchanged from its original script.
Hello, Team Ladybug! My name is Genghis and I’m with the writing team at XboxEra—I’d love to learn a bit more about the person behind a number of fantastic side-scrolling titles such as ‘Touhou Luna Nights’ & ‘DRAINUS’. Plus, I’d love to hear about your forthcoming 2D Metroidvania title ‘BLADE CHIMERA’.
Tell me about Team Ladybug. How did you get into the business of making games? I’d love to hear a bit about those smaller titles you’ve made before too, such as the tie-in games with ATLUS’ Strange Journey and Konosuba.
Saito: “At the time, I wasn’t at WSS, but a Dwango employee in charge of game contests.
The leader of Team Ladybug submitted an incredible game to the contest. He said he wanted to make a living by making video games. At the time, the concept of “indie games” didn’t really exist in Japan, and there weren’t many ways a single individual could make video games as a full-time job”.
Since I have a lot of connections with various Japanese IPs, after hearing his wishes, I came up with ideas for small-scale tie-in games, wrote up proposals, and presented them to different IPs.
I believe Touhou Luna Nights was one of your first game titles that launched globally. How did that come to be? And how have you felt about the reception your games have seen since?
Saito: “And that turned out to be a great idea, as he did a great job on those smaller IP games, and so I decided that he needed to make a game that could be sold on Steam.
I have connections with Touhou Project, and so I asked for ZUN’s permission to use the Touhou IP. Ever since, Team Ladybug has gotten the recognition and praise they deserve from all over the world, at least on Steam. As a producer, I’m very pleased”.
Touhou Luna Nights also launched on Xbox Game Pass. Did you feel that launching the game onto the subscription service helped with the game’s success?
Saito: “I believe the game was added to Xbox Game Pass after it had already become popular, but I was happy to be able to let even more people enjoy the game”.
Let’s talk about BLADE CHIMERA, your upcoming [Now Released!] 2D Metroidvania title.
What was the inspiration for this game? And is it bringing anything new to the table?
Ladybug: “The visuals are heavily inspired by cyberpunk movies, such as Blade Runner. However, when translating this sort of artwork into a video game, they’re mostly place in a way that makes sense for a video game, ignoring the accessibility to residents of the game’s world. For example, when I see blocks that float in the air for no reason, or places that are inaccessible without a high jump, I wonder to myself, “How do the people in this world go about their lives?”
Of course, sometimes the game is like that out of necessity, and my own games feature a lot of maps with video gamey placements. But in this game, I tried my best to show that people actually lived in this dystopian world with the graphics. I believe this can lead players to think that people actually live in these locations and help them emphasize with the protagonist Shin and his motive to hunt demons to protect the people of the city”.
From what I’ve seen, the game’s animations are incredibly smooth. Could you fill us in on how you’re able to do this while also providing a fluid gameplay experience?
Ladybug: “I learned dancing in high school, and to this day I’m pretty nimble still. So, when I was drawing the animations for the characters of this game, I used a method where I took photos of myself doing different actions and traced over the photos with pixel art”.
This is your second original work, right beside the side-scrolling shooter DRAINUS. How has the creation of new IP been going for you?
Saito: “Team Ladybug is very capable of making cinematic, powerful characters and worldbuilding suitable for original games. I think Ladybug will continue to create both original and tie-in games in the future. You can keep looking forward to new original works by Team Ladybug!”
What aspect of video game development do you enjoy the most?
Ladybug: “It’s a lot of fun when I make something that I want to surprise the player with”.
Do you have a favourite game? Are you actively playing anything right now?
Ladybug: “Most of my everyday life is spent on making video games, but I’ve been trying to play a variety of other games lately. My favorite games are Rhythm Heaven, Gran Turismo 7, and Ace Attorney”.
Is there anything you’d like for our readers to know about Team Ladybug and BLADE CHIMERA? Any final thoughts?
Ladybug: “Thank you very much for playing Blade Chimera. Please play DRAINUS too! The stories are actually connected, just a little bit”.
Blade Chimera is now available on PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch consoles. You can read up our review on the game right here!
