The gaming industry has changed over the past couple of decades. While there are plenty of studios out there vying for you dollars by pelting you with polygons and photorealistic graphics, there are some who take a different approach. With the advent of games like Super Meat Boy, we’ve also had games like The Messenger, which harkens back to old-school sidescrollers. That game, in particular, came from Quebec-based developer Sabotage Studio, and the very idea of making retro-inspired experiences is a big part of who they are.

Their next project is a game called Sea of Stars, a turn-based RPG inspired by the likes of Chrono Trigger. That Squaresoft classic is a staple of the JRPG genre, and even today, it stands out as a titan. I had a chance to speak with creative director and co-founder of Sabotage Studio, Thierry Boulanger, where we discussed the studio’s love of games, their main inspirations, and a bit of what we can expect from Sea of Stars.

The game has since demolished its $94,000 USD Kickstarter goal, but it’s now on its way to $1 million. If you want to support it, CLICK HERE!

Also, if you want to see a video version of my interview, you can check out the video below. Otherwise, you can read our back-and-forth underneath it!

LRM Online: I couldn’t be more excited to talk about this. The second that this game popped up on my radar, it came through a Facebook ad. I saw, “Okay, Chrono Trigger”. Obviously that’s a big game for us RPG fans. The second I saw it I was like, “All right, that’s a bold statement here. Let’s take a look exactly as to what it is”.

Then I went to your Kickstarter page, which has already long surpassed its $94,000, at least US dollar, goal. It is knocking on $500,000 at this point, which is fantastic. Congratulations on that. You guys don’t even have any current stretch goals yet for where you guys are going, as far as the finances go. I’m looking forward to seeing how high this thing goes.

But I was very impressed, for a myriad of reasons. The first thing I was impressed by was the art direction you guys decided to go with. Because when I see people talking about Chrono Trigger inspired, a lot of the time it’s, yeah, Chrono Trigger inspired. But you know, it still has a very, usually 3D sort of aesthetic. My mind goes to studios like Tokyo RPG Factory, where they had I Am Setsuna, and Lost Sphere. Where it’s still trying to be a little bit modern. But you’ve fully embraced the retro angle.

At what point did you decide you were going to go with the pixel art, as opposed to 3D, CG type stuff?

Boulanger: Well, these are good examples. You know, the more modern ones that you mentioned, it’s like they have the retro game design and gameplay, and then the modernized art direction. For us, it’s 100 percent the opposite. We’re going, in terms of audio and visuals, we want to belong to sort of late ’90s, in terms of emotionally where it’s at.

Then in terms of game design and gameplay and storytelling, that’s where we modernized. Of course, we added a few things in there that you would not have seen on those retro consoles, such as dynamic lighting and whatnot. But we definitely want this to open this nostalgia box. You know?

LRM Online: What do you think it is that, what are those main core aspects that you want to capture from the ’90s? When someone says, “’90s RPG”, or something, what are those key elements that you think make something a ’90s RPG?

Boulanger: There’s something about the … Wow, that’s a big one.

LRM Online: Yeah, it’s a big one. There’s a lot to unpack there.

Boulanger: But there’s certainly something there about, it’s the kind of experience that could only emerge from really harsh limitations. First, going from pixel art, it’s a way of looking at a character, and bonding with them in a way that you just don’t get anymore. Sprites have something inherently cute, that you want to be attached to. You know?

In this sense, we’re trying to connect to this simplicity. It’s not an overly long cinematic intro, and then music that is more of a score. No, it gets to the point right away, with catchy bits. All of that, the idea is to distill instead of dilute, if that makes sense. By keeping this simple, we can’t really get lost in lengthy bits that don’t really bring anything, or that can often bring tedium.

By keeping it simple, we have to focus on moment to moment things.

LRM Online: Right. You’re coming off of The Messenger, which was a very critically acclaimed game that came out. But it doesn’t really resemble this in any way, shape, or form. I believe it’s set in the same world, correct?

Boulanger: Right.

LRM Online: It’s a prequel story, as you say in your video. However, very different game mechanics. How long did it take for you guys, coming off of that project, to decide you wanted to go into a turn based RPG? Which is a huge departure.

Boulanger: It was actually pitched … Everyone who has been … For me, this fantasy world has been building since I was in elementary school. All those characters, and big story arcs. It’s bringing these things to life, and then which game genres fit perfectly the story, or best the story that we’ll be telling? In the case of Messenger, it’s a solo protagonist going from Point A to Point B, basically. So a side scroller action platformer was good for that.

Now Sea of Stars is about a group of adventurers sailing around the world, and unraveling mysteries. It’s more about taking your time in that adventure, so the turn based RPG is a better fit there for the story.

For us at the studio, everybody knew we were going to make an RPG. It was the project everyone who joined the studio was most excited about. Messenger just happened to be sort of, not necessarily simpler, because game dev is always its own challenge. But it was something we could get traction on more easily, with a smaller team, as we slowly ramped up to the full staff, if you will. Now all 16 of us are there. It’s kind of the definitive edition of the team. It’s the final vision that we had.

Now we have the resources that we need to undertake a project that’s bigger. Also, we hopefully built some trust with our fan base, that now they can believe that we can tackle these more complex systems, and that we’ll be delivering. Because we showed the attention to detail, and a promise of quality and polish on everything that we touch. That’s the one thing we’ll never compromise on.

As far as pitching it to the team, to fully answer that question, the first complete pitch was in October, 2018. That was, I think two or three months after we released The Messenger. We just had a summit, remote place for a week. Everyone just chilling together. It was like, “Everyone, here’s the next thing”.

During that event, I pitched The Messenger DLC, Picnic Panic. Then also, Sea of Stars. It was like, “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. We’re doing this DLC, and then the RPG. Unless we choose to do more DLC”. But then it was based more on who was excited about what. There was an overwhelming hype internally to get cracking on the RPG, so we started doing that.

LRM Online: At which stage did you realize that you would have combat on the current screen, like Chrono Trigger status?

Boulanger: That was always there.

LRM Online: Always there?

Boulanger: Oh yeah. It’s something that was a letdown in every single game after I played that one, you know?

LRM Online: Yeah, it is interesting how you have a lot of those games that are sort of inspired. But I can’t think of any off the top of my head, or at least very many of them, where they actually do the same sort of thing. Where you hit an enemy, and then everyone kind of arranges themselves on a screen. Then a battle menu pops up, and you jump right into it.

That was one of the big selling points when I saw your video. I was like, “Oh. They’re fully embracing, they’re going right into that”. I thought that was cool.

Boulanger: Right. I’d say probably Cosmic Star Heroine was one that would be, it was compared to it in some fashion. It was pixel art, and it had that more seamless combat. But yeah, it’s true. It’s very rare. I think perhaps part of it is, you want your navigation to feel really organic. You don’t want to end up in this, “Oh, this looks like a battle arena, so of course there is combat”.

You don’t want something where it’s straight lines, and then big squares, you know? Blending all of that is certainly its own challenge, in terms of level design. But it’s the world we want to build.

LRM Online: What can you tell us about the battle system that you guys created for this game?

Boulanger: Well, it’s … I mean, so the first thing is very much to have it seamless. I think it’s getting memed a little bit, how often I use this word now. But to tell you that there’s no transition, there’s no loading. It’s not a separate battlefield. It’s exactly where you are navigating.

But then also, the reason why it’s turn based instead of having time bars, is that time bars would conflict with the idea of timing your input. If you think of Mario RPG, or Paper Mario, or the Mario and Luigi games. That as the animation displaying, if you press at the right moment, you increase the damage you deal. Or you can block an enemy attack. You can reduce damage.

But so that would conflict with, “The bar is full, so the menu pops up for that character. But you’re just trying to do the input for your attack. Then it’s having you select an attack for someone else”, or whatever. The idea is really, “No, you focus. You get to …”. It’s far from being a tactical RPG. But still, you know?

Kind of this vibe of, when it’s your turn, you can fully take your time. You can think things through. You can go through all your special skills, and look at the info cards on all the enemies, and choose the perfect move, and plan out all your stuff. Instead of always being rushed, or you’ll be missing out as they’re auto attacking you, you know?

LRM Online: Right. You had a big announcement this morning, as of recording. We’re recording this on April 7th, the morning of April 7th. Woke up to some interesting news, that you guys had landed Yasunori Mitsuda. One of the original composers for Chrono Trigger.

Boulanger: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

LRM Online: Basically bringing this whole project full circle, it seems like. How did that happen?

Boulanger: I mean, it’s hard to describe, you know? It’s this thing where, aim for the Moon, and worst case, and well I guess we just didn’t miss. We tried. It was a very long shot, you know? We tried very tentatively, and we’ve been asking for, I think the first time we asked someone was three years ago. Because there are people who, their work is, they’re talent agents, and they’ll try to be linking the West with Asia and whatnot. All this sort of …

It’s like, “Could we have this guy, though?”. It’s always like, “Eh, that’s …”. All we got always was, “That’s really a long shot”. Yeah, so we just kept at it. Eventually it was just reaching out and asking politely, and letting the game speak for itself. Because from just the idea on paper, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be someone of this status.

But you would assume that it’s the kind of interactions that they get all the time. It’s like, “You don’t understand, I’m doing this for a living, because I was inspired by your work. Would you write music for our project?”. It’s like, “Eh, why this one?”, or whatever.

But no, I guess there was something in there that he felt was genuine enough, that he wanted to get involved. That’s also the sentiment we got from him. I don’t know if you saw his official quote. But yeah, he felt compelled. He felt like he had to contribute to the project. I think it’s not so much about reaching out, just business. Or, “Hey, are you working for work”. Of course he’s not looking for work. But he’s looking to work on something that he genuinely cares to work on.

It’s really hard to pinpoint how we pulled this off. Because it just came down to, he looked at it and said yes, because he felt it. You know?

LRM Online: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Do you know how he will be contributing with your other composer, Eric C Brown? How that’s going to work? The dynamic?

Boulanger: Eric W Brown, yeah.

LRM Online: W Brown, sorry. Eric W Brown.

Boulanger: You’re good. I mean, so for sure, he’s more of a guest composer. Because Eric is our go to guy, and full time in house composer. We’re looking at different options. The game has many islands, so perhaps one island could be all Mitsuda, you know? Or perhaps he could contribute to different little bits of the game.

It’s also that he has some very interesting options. Perhaps he could be a band. Perhaps he could be an orchestra. It can really go anywhere. We’re kind of, at this point, just excited to be working together. From both sides. We’re just figuring out what the options are. We want this to be what feels truly right, and we understand, we know what our game looks like obviously. We understand the emotion it created in the growing fan base, so we definitely want to deliver on that.

RELATED – Sea Of Stars Interview: How This Chrono Trigger-Inspired RPG Came To Be (Exclusive)

LRM Online: Right. Now I guess we’re kind of going backwards on this. What can you tell us about the overall story for Sea of Stars, and the main characters that we’ll be controlling?

Boulanger: Right. Well, it’s a world where two immortal alchemists had a falling out basically. They set out to create the elixir of life, and they succeeded, so they became immortal. It became kind of boring after a while. What happened is that their flesh kept on decaying, so they look like dried up mummies. Now they wear colorful robes to conceal their hideous appearances.

Basically one of those two, after thousands of years of immortality, got bored and decided to set out to regain his physical youth, if you will, and started performing alchemy on flesh and bone and soul and blood. The other one was like, “You should stop this. It’s kind of evil, what you’re doing”, and eventually he emerged as the Fleshmancer. This evil entity that’s like, “I’ll cause whatever pain I need to, as I do research and development on all lifeforms”.

Basically, they’ve had this fight going on forever, and now the world is kind of in this aftermath of, there’s giant constructions, and then scars everywhere. Cities that are no go zones for this or that clan, because the aftermath, or the collateral damage of their never ending fight is visible everywhere.

You have the Fleshmancer on the one side, who is creating monsters. Who, if they feed long enough, it will emerge as a World Eater, which is a monster that, it would be the apocalypse. It would destroy everything. On the other side you have the Children of the Solstice, who fight for the good alchemist. When they were born, on the Summer or Winter solstice, they get the power of the Sun or Moon. Then that magic combines to Eclipse Magic, and it’s the one thing that can destroy the Fleshmancer’s creations.

There’s a legend that says two Solstice Warriors could emerge as Guardian Gods, and then they would be invincible. Whether there will be a World Eater first, or Guardian Gods first, determines the fate of the world essentially. We’re playing two characters who are born on the same year. One Summer, one Winter. They go on this quest together, and they’re going through Solstice Warrior training. They’re patrolling the world, and they’re kind of assessing the Fleshmancer’s monsters. They’re answering to their order.

They always have these meetings at every eclipse. They need to take down a specific threatening monster that’s about to morph or evolve or whatever. So they try to take them down, so they kind of have those meetings every time there is a special eclipse event. That’s the basic setting. Where we’re in a long line of those warriors, just going about our days.

Obviously the stakes get higher, because we do play two very important Solstice Warriors there.

LRM Online: Right. How do the abilities of the Solstice Warriors play into the battle system? Do they each have their own unique skillset? How does that work?

Boulanger: Yes, they do. Regular attacks are what they are. They just look different. They have each their own weapons. In terms of special skills, one will have Moon magic, the other one will have Sun magic. Then that can play into enemy resistances or weaknesses. A certain enemy could be impervious to Sun magic, or very vulnerable to Moon magic, and things like that. It’s very much, without doing the classic fire, water, earth, and air, there’s still this kind of rock, paper, scissors of resistances and bonuses going on.

LRM Online: Right. I have so many thing to say about this game, in terms of just how it looks, and how seamless, I said it this time, how seamless it all blends together. What would you say, if you were to point to either one feature, or one technological type breakthrough that you guys do, would you say is the most exciting aspect of this project so far?

Boulanger: I think really traversal. Just running around the game, it’s a bit harder to convey, because controls are something you need to actually feel. But we’re very much putting the platformer experience to use here. The fact that you enter a cavern, and there’s no loading. It just fades out and then back in, and you’re in the cavern. You start hiking. You just jump, climb up. You come out, you fight enemies, and then you just jump out next to the entrance.

All these moments where, “Oh, you want to go down there? You’ve got to find the stairs or the ladder”. No, you just jump off. Or those moments where you’re done with a side area, and then you need to walk back. It’s like, “No you just jump off”. We’re always having these points. Or even unlocking shortcuts. Things like, “Oh, it’s kind of a hike”. But then you kick a rope ladder down. Then you get these shortcuts and all of that. That’s definitely something we’re trying to bring.

We’re careful with the term, Metroidvania, because it caused a bit of a debate about Messenger. Whether or not it was a legit one or not. Which, I don’t even know that it was. But so without necessarily using the term, there is definitely this concept of, you’ll be seeing a place you can’t reach in an early dungeon. Then later on you get a traversal upgrade. Then if you make the connection, “Oh, I can now go back to this early dungeon. Now I’ll be able to get to this place”. Then there’s a special chest that’s good for very later in the game, by the time you can get to that.

All of that, these elements are in there, for sure.

LRM Online: Cool. All right, now getting just a little more personal. What would you say, for you, is maybe the single most influential video game you played growing up?

Boulanger: Chrono Trigger, for sure.

RELATED – Chrono Trigger Composer Yasunori Mitsuda Joins Retro-Inspired Sea Of Stars Video Game

LRM Online: Oh, besides Chrono Trigger. That’s an easy one. Besides Chrono Trigger.

Boulanger: Well I mean, besides the reason why I made this game, you mean? Well, besides that, passion aside, I mean it’s kind of like after number one, there’s a lot of empty space. Then there’s a lot of them. Ninja Gaiden was a huge one. Ninja Gaiden 2 specifically. Monkey Island.

LRM Online: Oh wow, yeah.

Boulanger: Monkey Island was huge. As some could tell by a bit of the writing there. I mean, the thing is, the short answer is all of them. Because all I did, I did nothing but play games, you know? Illusion of Gaia is a very big one. Suikoden 2, definitely. Lufia, the second one again. Breath of Fire. I mean, but even more recent, Mass Effect. Mass Effect 2 specifically. I don’t know what it is with second, with sequels. But Donkey Kong Country 2 as well. Yeah, I mean, you know.

LRM Online: There’s a lot, yeah.

Boulanger: All those.

LRM Online: It’s a lot of stuff to work through.

Boulanger: A lot of retro titles for sure. Yeah.

LRM Online: Not to jump ahead too far. But what other genres would you like to tackle in the future?

Boulanger: Well, I mean, which ones I would like to tackle? So not necessarily which one we will be tackling? Or not necessarily –

LRM Online: I mean, it could be either/or. It could be either/or.

Boulanger: Yeah, right. I mean, everything would be fun to tackle to some degree. Because the treatment, what we do is, we try to preserve what aged well. We rethink what didn’t, to modernize those experiences, and try to give a reminder to those who miss those games, how great they could be without the stiff controls or the repetitive music sometimes, and things like that. There’s many genres we could do that to.

The point and click adventure would be a fun one, I think.

LRM Online: Oh wow.

Boulanger: Yeah.

LRM Online: Yeah, that would be cool to see nowadays. I haven’t played one of those in, what decade is it? I don’t know.

Boulanger: Yeah. Even sports games. If they were more arcade style. I’m thinking of Kings of the Beach, a volleyball game on NES. Things like that. Those were so great. But yeah, I mean anything really. Perhaps just not an FPS. That’s not something that we were so much into, you know? Not that I didn’t play Doom Eternal. But it’s just not something that I understand enough, or felt enough things I wish were done differently as I played that.

LRM Online: Sure. Are there anything else that you would like anyone out there listening, any of your Kickstarter supporters, about the game, that you would like to share before we call it?

Boulanger: Well I mean, all we have to say at this point is, thank-you so much. We’ve gotten way further way faster than we thought we would. It kind of got bigger than us. We’re still, we’re not exactly backed up, but we’re still figuring out how to best deal with all of that. We don’t want to make it bigger just because we can. We actually, we feel like we have what we needed out of it.

We’re just absolutely thankful. The one thing we did underestimate is the social media goals. We wanted to reveal new characters at certain milestones. It turned out, the campaign did 10 times better than we thought. Then the social media people don’t really care, and that’s fine. But it’s just, we’re eager to reveal a third playable character, so we might actually do that, even though we haven’t reached the goal for it.

LRM Online: Oh, cool. Cool cool. Well thank-you so much for coming on here. I hope you are all staying safe during this very, very trying time. I certainly can’t wait to play this game. I am over the Moon, and it’s a shame that we’re, what, two years away from this thing coming out at this point? Which is, quality takes time, and I’m happy you guys have what you need. The resources. I’m just thrilled. Congratulations, and best of luck to you.

Boulanger: Thanks so much. 

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