I love game demos. I love how Steam Next Fest, among other initiatives, has brought them back from the void. Before the indie game boom, Xbox 360-era game demos led to some serious palate development for me. I would never have played Dead Rising (one of my favourite games of all time) if it wasn’t for that substantial slice of Willamette that Capcom dropped in the blade dungeon. Remember the John Woo Presents Stranglehold demo? Crackdown? Kane and Lynch? Iconic. Demos for AAA games are making a comeback nowadays, but it still feels like it’s kind of by design – in some cases – that you don’t get to try before you buy. Hype is a pernicious, profitable beast.
Next Fest ends today, but Steam is a veritable hotbed of indie game demos all year round, to be honest, so you should always keep your ear to the ground. I was rewarded for doing so earlier this year when I played the demo for The Ballad of Bonky, a “bouncy arcade adventure” where you enter a burger factory and unravel an alien conspiracy. Along the way, you’ll biff, bap and boot all manner of claymation animals, creating a collision course of pure chaos. The maximalist SFX and humour brought me all the way back to playing Saturday Morning Cartoon-style games like Earthworm Jim 3D as a kid. The soundtrack is full of these Rayman-esque mouth sounds, telephone sounds, and catchy house beats too. It rocks.
I caught wind of the project years ago via Twitter while following one of the game’s artists, Cobcris. Many games look good, but it’s a real treat when something feels good. TBOB’s demo is an extremely compelling half-hour full of memorable touches, like fingerprints in clay. There’s this clean rewind transition effect that occurs as you mess up, and when you encounter a pig security guard, you’ll see that they’re watching you on their cameras, and it’s a live feed of your in-game actions. So dope!
In any case, I’m stoked to play the full game when it lands and experience those ‘musical boss battles’ the Steam page talks about. Godspeed, Bonky devs!
To dig a little deeper, I sent some questions to the devs (Guy, cobcris, SupaBubba, Dieter Theuns), and the team was lovely enough to respond.
How did this project get its start? Were their prototypes and concepts before you landed on The Ballad of Bonky?
We worked on some jam games and trying out different ideas, then started working on a kind of platformer about a chicken in a factory (kip), but we wanted to make something more of a playground with freedom to put all kinds of cool ideas to play around with and explore all kinds of places.
Can you run me through the process of making an asset for Bonky?
It starts with me (cobcris) going to the art shop. It’s a nice walk. Then I buy plasticine, which I use for modelling the assets. Guy and I talk about stuff. Then we make some drawings. After that, I sculpt stuff! It’s fun. Feels good, smells good. Using my fingers instead of a mouse and a monitor is healthy and joyful. Then I place the model over a colored paper sheet, turn on the lamp, find the sweet spot of shadow/light, and shoot a couple pictures. Finally, I remove the background on the computer and send the assets to Guy. Then he does some stuff that I don’t really understand, and a videogame appears. It’s awesome.
How would you describe Bonky’s style in your own words?
We try to keep it simple and full of mistakes. It’s made with plasticine using my fingers, and it’s meant to look like that. Mistakes are good; there’s something unique in the human touch and we like to use in our favor instead of fighting it and trying it to look perfect. Enjoying the process soaks the final look with some kind of magic. It’s a bit silly and also emotional. Biggest inspirations are Francesco Misseri and Bill Plympton.
How did you get the spider guard tower boss into the game, starting from a clay base?
We wanted the boss to be 3D but also made with real clay. we started with a drawing, cob made the parts out of clay and photographed them; I (Guy) then import the photos as textures into Blender and used the drawing as a reference to piece it together as he imagined it and animate it. the 3D model is then rendered in a 3D scene in Godot and placed in the 2D world.
My favourite part of the demo was the elevator sequence, a Tetris Effect-esque blend of sfx and gameplay. Can you discuss how that section was made and your approach to encounters in Bonky?
We wanted it to be a little refreshing moment after doing the main combat for a while and make the transition to the basement feel more important. You’re in an elevator, and your enemies get shot away by bonking, so this design just kind of came naturally. Our first idea was a big elevator level with a scrolling background, but that wouldn’t be all that different from other parts of the game.
Can you shout out everyone involved in Bonky so I can link them out here?
Guy – https://twitter.com/guyunger_nl
Cobcris – https://twitter.com/cobcris
SupaBubba – https://twitter.com/SupaBubbaMusic
Dieter Theuns – http://dietertheuns.com
Are there any other indie projects in the space you’d like to shout out?
I’m most excited for ENA dream BBQ; Decline’s Drops seems like it’ll be interesting, too 🙂
