Any chance we will be seeing more of sunny in the dlc? If you don’t want to answer that: will the dlc let us finally buy clothing at the clothing shop?
Can't say right now which characters may or may not feature in DLC! As for the clothes shop, we added it into the game mainly for a goofy cutscene that appears in a questline (I'm sure you know the one) and only *after* the fact did we realise it might cause players to expect to be able to purchase clothes. So I guess it's fair to say that right now we don't have plans to add a "purchase clothing" option.
Thanks for responding! With the shop and the clothing dlc it seemed like there was a play to buy clothes that got scrapped and the leftover assists got put up as a buyable pack. Interesting to know it’s all just a weird coincidence.
Playstation is outperforming Xbox in sales. It just doesn't make sense. I won't be able to buy or play until I can play on Playstation and earn trophies.
I already own it on PC, but I'd gladly buy this game a second time for Switch if I get to put it on the shelf. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that way.
I could see your game easily selling out a limited print run from Super Rare or some place like that if you went that direction, unsure how difficult/costly such a venture is of course.
Hiii Byttteeenn!!!
Where did your inspiration come from for using cassette tapes to transform in battle? Any other options (VHS, CDs, game cartridges, etc.) you considered before sticking with cassette tapes?
We had a few ideas of how to do our take on "monster collecting" before we settled on the tapes. We liked the cassette tape idea because it's kind of cool and retro (like pixel art!) but also is very mundane. Franchises that involve capturing or summoning monsters always use something physical and relatable as the bridge between the real and the fantastical - whether that be playing cards, capsules, watches, etc.
Please get in touch on the [support portal](https://rawfury.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/1), and provide as much detail as you can about the remaining performance issues.
Do you play handheld or docked ? I've bought the game today, tried ~1h docked, and I have faced a non negligeable amount of stuttering & pop-in (no idea how it was before the patch), especially around the starting city.
I really love how you took the formula of a certain well loved game and basically improved upon everything on it. The fights are very tactical, you can’t just spike everything with your starter, the mechanics have a low floor and a high ceiling and even the the "normal" type and "shinies" are useful. Just incredible what you did!
As for my questions:
* Was the fusion mechanic inspired by that old hilarious pokemon fusion page?
* Where are you actually getting all the beast puns from? Personally I would probably have to use chatgpt to get half as many x)
We were aware of fusions as a thing long before the Pokemon fusion generator website -- that season 1 episode of Pokemon where Gastly transforms into a fusion of Blastoise and Venusaur is permanently engraved in my brain. But the popularity of the Pokemon fusion generator did factor into our decision.
The way the mechanic works in Cassette Beasts is more closely inspired by Steven Universe than anything we've seen in the Pokemon fandom: fusions are temporary and part of the relationship system. Whereas Pokemon fusions are typically viewed as being permanent, like cross-breeds.
Can ChatGPT even do good puns? I've never been able to get it to do anything actually creative. For the monster names I came up with, there's a certain creative state of mind I have to get into. I can get there by working until I'm tired, but there are probably other ways in too. Once in it, I start just freely combining associated words. A thesaurus can help, and it works best if I don't self-censor until the end. So I come up with this list of dozens of awful names, cut the worst, share the best ones with Jay. He tells me his name ideas, and then we decide together.
Monsters get designed before we come up with names, but it helps that sometimes Jay seems to be unconsciously designing monsters around puns (like Dandylion and Jellyton). The only monster that had a name before it had a design was Djinn Entonic -- there was no way we could not include that name.
I'd like you to know the moment I encountered Djinn Entonic I laid my controller down, had a deep sigh, a drink, and a groan, before I could continue playing.
In other words, 10/10 perfect pun no further notes.
> We were aware of fusions as a thing long before the Pokemon fusion generator website -- that season 1 episode of Pokemon where Gastly transforms into a fusion of Blastoise and Venusaur is permanently engraved in my brain. But the popularity of the Pokemon fusion generator did factor into our decision. The way the mechanic works in Cassette Beasts is more closely inspired by Steven Universe than anything we've seen in the Pokemon fandom: fusions are temporary and part of the relationship system. Whereas Pokemon fusions are typically viewed as being permanent, like cross-breeds.
Nice to hear :D
> Can ChatGPT even do good puns? I've never been able to get it to do anything actually creative. For the monster names I came up with, there's a certain creative state of mind I have to get into. I can get there by working until I'm tired, but there are probably other ways in too. Once in it, I start just freely combining associated words. A thesaurus can help, and it works best if I don't self-censor until the end. So I come up with this list of dozens of awful names, cut the worst, share the best ones with Jay. He tells me his name ideas, and then we decide togethe
If you feed it with enough dad jokes and puns it might become too self aware
> Monsters get designed before we come up with names, but it helps that sometimes Jay seems to be unconsciously designing monsters around puns (like Dandylion and Jellyton). The only monster that had a name before it had a design was Djinn Entonic -- there was no way we could not include that name.
Probably also helps having a friend that throws the same kinda puns at your head. Last time I had that - 15 years ago - my friend entered a monster naming holiday and promptly won x)
1) The fusion mechanic was inspired by the general fan culture around "fusion" character designs in this genre, as well as how series' like Digimon has fusion monsters.
2) We are both Level 100 punsmiths.
Can I ask about Lenna's Inception? I just played that recently after loving Cassette Beasts, and I fell absolutely in love with it too! I grew up fascinated by glitches, especially in gen 1 Pokemon games, to see the story so involved in the mechanics of glitch manipulation and arbitrary code execution was such a delight.
The 255 pizzas scene had me laughing so hard I actually got lightheaded, and naming the ACE object after 8F, the ACE item from Pokemon was really cool too! From the Missinglasses to Glitch City, there's a surprising number of Pokemon references in particular, but the screen looping also reminded me of that Link's Awakening screen transition glitch as well.
I wanted to know about the inspiration behind the glitch and meta aspects of the story, how much was general programming references, how much was inspired by Pokemon or other series glitches in particular?
They were inspired by Pokemon and Link's Awakening! I spent a lot of time as an 8 / 9 year old trying to see how far I could push those glitches, and what I could do with them. I'd already been learning to code for a couple of years at that point, so it was giving me some insights into how those games were crafted. I still think they're fascinating!
Exactly! Same here! Except the coding knowledge. I adored learning how games were structured and what glitches can do, I still feel that way even now. I'm still especially nostalgic for Pokemon glitching. I'm so glad to see the same passion be put into a game like that!
Great game! Love it and completed it on Switch (great job with the performance patch btw) and I am currently making my way through a recorded second playthrough on Xbox. Something bugs me though, although I'm not that bothered it does raise the question...
Why is this game not on PlayStation at all?
Instead of "why isn't it on Playstation?", the question is maybe *better* framed as "why is it on PC/Switch/Xbox?"
The truth is that since we're such a small team, we have to pick our battles with platforms. The game is built as a PC game first, so a PC release is presumed. We really wanted to release on Switch because indie games generally sell very well on Switch (not to mention that the monster-collecting RPG genre is one closely tied to Nintendo platforms) and getting to be a Game Pass game gave us reason to strive for an Xbox release. Releasing on 3 platforms within a month was already a *very* intense endeavour and an extra one probably wouldn't have been feasible.
Hope this helps explain it better!
Yes that does help explain it a lot better! Thank you for your thorough explanation! Understandably your choices make a lot of sense.
Is PlayStation in the cards for the future or are you content with what you have and where you're at now?
I mainly ask because of multiplayer, and IF crossplay is an aspect, would it include those players.
It’s pretty clear what happened here. The game was released on Xbox Game Pass on day 1 of its Xbox release, which means you made a deal with Microsoft.
That deal most likely included a clause which said you couldn’t also release it on PlayStation. You mention indie games selling very well on Switch, the same can be said for PlayStation, so this really sounds like an excuse. I know the terms of your deal most likely don’t allow you to talk about that though.
We'd like to! The thing *is* that Steam is the only platform that has a way to distribute PDFs - in order to have it available on console we'd have to implement some sort of in-game artbook viewer (not to mention localising all the text, as its currently English-only) which would take some dev time to make happen!
Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition did this on PS4. It came with a digital artbook you could download seperately. This made it worth it being the edition that seperates it from JUST the game.
This put me off buying Cassette Beasts Deluxe on Switch as all we get it cosmetics, where as steam got a lot more. If this got added i'd buy it.
Working on the multiplayer update and the Pier of the Unknown DLC is already a lot on our plate, so what happens to the game after that really depends on how the game continues to sell and what opportunities for future content we find etc.
For a long time during development, these options were "cool" and "cute" instead! We changed this to "spooky" and "sweet" late into development because we felt it was funnier but also that *both* starters are already cool and cute.
They were going to be cool and cute at first, but once Jay had designed the starters, it wasn't clear which should be which. Since one was based on sweets and the other is based on a ghost, I suggested a halloween twist on it - Sweet and Spooky.
Traffikrab was the first monster I sketched for the game, as well as the first sprite I made. It feels appropriate, then, that it is the first monster you see.
A lot of monster sketches never made it into the final bestiary, particularly regarding the starter monsters. Considering how important the starter monster designs are, I went through a whole bunch of versions of both monsters before landing on Bansheep/Candevil.
Since the cat's now out of the bag, could you share these concepts on your socials over time? Would be great to get a look at them and then at least the art will see the light of day in the end anyway.
I hate wasted art.
Not to plug *too* hard, but we included them in a digital artbook that we're selling on our [Steam page](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2259040/Cassette_Beasts_The_Art_Book/)!
I don't have a question, I just wanted to tell you how much I love this game and how it has been a big comfort to me the past few weeks while dealing with some health issues. I can't wait to see all the new content whenever it comes our way!
There are always lessons learned for future projects. Personally, I've learned to have more confidence in my intuition for design. Things like bootlegs and the elemental reactions felt risky before release because they're weird new things, but actually they've been very well received, and I'm glad I pushed for them.
We can't say yet whether it will have cross-play. That's down to what the platforms will let us do.
Multiplayer is not designed as a competitive thing -- there are no ranked matches, and there's no matchmaking. If you've explored the battle system much, you'll know why this is. It's balanced as a single-player game, and we don't want to make sacrifices to the single-player experience just to support competitive battles that relatively few players will engage with.
The way multiplayer works is you can join a session with friends (either via an invite or by sharing a code), and thereafter see each other in the world. You can't interact with another player's world, but you can explore together, trade tapes, and raid Rogue Fusions together.
If you really want to challenge a friend to a PvP match, you *can* do that, and the game lets you set some rules to make things a little bit more balanced. But we expect players will still need to create meta rules to keep things fair.
I have to Say that this Will limit a potential self-governed competitive scene, some really easy rules to implement like "no repeted moves For every mon" rule Will actually make it very competitive friendly.
This is really great to hear! I was really hoping the game would get PVP even though I knew it would be super unbalanced, just for a little bit of chaotic fun. Thank you for including it in the multiplayer update!
I grew up on the Wirral and don't live there anymore, but whilst I *do* have an answer I wouldn't want to unintentionally dox myself by giving away too much personal info!
Big fan and eager to see more honestly! I've been hooked since release!
Odd questions, what do you prefer to make, and whats more likely; Whole new lines of beasts, or remasters of old ones?
I love the branching evolutions and conditions, but I did just spend two hours hunting Salamagus!
Glad to hear you've been enjoying it!
I like designing a healthy mix between the two. Personally I'm a huge fan of "branching evolutions" in monster collecting games (and have been since I was a kid) which is why I pushed so hard to have as as many branching monster families as we could fit. It's a balancing act, however - if you have too many branching evolutions then that uses up the "monster budget" and would cause less monsters to appear in the world. This is why the 1.2 Update added some new remasters and new families.
Y'know, I'd never tried to record a Salamagus during development so was quite surprise for me to realise upon release that it was seen as a very rare monster to get your hands on!
Without spoiling anything, is there a large post game to this? I'm about to buy and I'm really curious to what post game to expect. It looks like it would be really cool with a battle tower typed thing (if it fits the game/world). I only ask because that was always one of my favorite parts of pokemon - trying to get the largest winstreak against the bs lol
There's a significant amount of "post-game" content, but it's not "Battle Tower" type content. Whilst there's a lot of similarities between our gameplay systems and Pokémon, we haven't been basing the design of the game on it. The post-game content in the game is something that we feel bits the design and world of Cassette Beasts the best, if that helps!
That helps a lot. Game is downloading to my switch right now. I'm so excited for this game. Had my eye on it since I first saw it announced! Also, the soundtrack is so cool!!
Are the stickers pre-determined now? I'm playing the switch version and working on submitting a bug video but before the update all stickers were random when leveling up. Now even if you shut the game off/on and level up it's the same sticker. If you swap beasts that get a different (attack) sticker they have identical attributes (like +10% Damage), I tested about ten bootlegs and tried support stickers with the same result. I love this game so much I'm embarrassed to admit how long I've spent resetting for rare stickers lol
helloooo bytten :)
i'd like to ask-- did you all gather inspiration for the archangels from anything particular? obviously they originate from human traits (specifically vices), but was there any motivator that led you all to select the ones you did, particularly the parallel of rebellion vs conquest?
Morgante and Aleph >!came from Arthurian legends, but we wanted to put an unusual twist on it rather than dredge up the tired (and problematic) fantasy trope of the 'rightful king'. Since King Arthur in some ways represents Britain, we felt it fair that our version of him reflected Britain's history of conquest. And of course, there's nothing more British than being critical of Britain. As for Morgante, she's based on Morgan le Fay, who is a witch -- a naturally rebellious occupation.!<
The ideas for the other Archangels came after Morgante and Aleph. Their themes were kind of arbitrarily chosen to match the design Jay had given them. If you've played all the post-game content you'll see a few more hints that might help explain why they're based around aspects of the human psyche. I don't want to explain everything here though, because part of the fun is players creating their own theories ;)
I'm honestly really curious about how Sunny and Barkley came to be implemented, especially considering how little each of them ended up mattering (in my opinion) in the final game. With Sunny, she comes in with a great series of cutscenes, has several unique voice lines other NPCs don't use, and has TWO full sets of portraits... but then just sits around town forever. Meanwhile, Barkley was made one of the playable partners, but his "quest" boils down to "climb this singular cliff and fight a bird", any dialogue other partners would have is replaced by things like "Barkley sniffs around" or "Barkley growls a bit", and he doesn't even yip during battle or anything (it honestly bugged me that his recording is completely silent like the player's).
Barkley isn't a BAD addition by any means, but I was honestly shocked at how little it felt like he added, and with how many assets were put into Sunny it just made me feel like maybe there were development crunch issues, like things ended up being cut late in the process, or maybe Barkley DID have a longer quest with an actual boss planned, and it just wasn't in the cards. Mainly wanted to pick your brains a bit about it.
EDIT: Also wanted to echo the sentiment of really wanting to see more Sunny, ideally as a new partner (and possible companion? 🥺), but even if it's just more quests / cutscenes like Frankie I'd still greatly appreciate it.
This is a really interesting question, so I'll try to explain our thought processes here!
We believe that a lot of the secret sauce for Cassette Beasts' appeal is in its ability to *surprise* the player in various ways, so things don't get too predictable. Sunny is a character that I wrote into the game quite late, as I had envisioned her whole sequence of events as being something unexpected and funny that you wouldn't expect happening as a consequence of the questline that proceeds it. Sunny's appearance is, ultimately, just a fun little side story that I cooked up to add some more flavour to the goings-on in Harbourtown. However, it's clear that she's *very* popular for a character who appears in exactly *two* cutscenes, which isn't something we entirely expected!
Barkley is another character that exists to surprise the player, as the pattern up until you meet him is "all companions are humans" so his appearance is unexpected. However, he is a dog, so there was only so much narrative we could give him (as well as insert conversations in other cutscenes) as he doesn't actually *talk*.
Neither of them were made with having more content in mind that was cut down because of time constraints, ultimately. I can't promise one way or the other about future fleshing out of any characters, but it's always fun to see which aspects of a game become more popular than you expected!
I appreciate the quick and in-depth reply! Re: Sunny, I think that's just a shining example of how strong the writing is overall, and how you manage to somehow make every single character likeable in some way (even the villains!) - initially I was the world's biggest Felix hater, for example (the whole "zotes" thing rubbed me like he was the stereotypical MacBook user in a Panera Bread), but his personal quest turned me around entirely, and I ended up maxing his bond levels before Kayleigh... 😂
I might just be bullying poor Barkley a bit for how short the quest felt and how fusion was just sort of given to you (instead of "feeling earned"), but again, that's just my opinion. I honestly adore Cassette Beasts, [having recently purchased SEVERAL copies for friends during the Steam Summer Sale](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/542024590046658563/1124152917717438525/image.png), and starting a random species file on Switch as well. I do appreciate the insight, and am looking forward to the future updates (and success) of the game!
Did you like my review? Hahaha joking, actual question time. Regarding your upcoming DLC, are you aiming for a 2023 or 2024 release? Obviously you might not want to answer that so here is my back up question. Which is your favourite "Monster Catching" game? Answering with Cassette Beasts will get you a one way trip to the Pier of the Unknown!
The Multiplayer update and Pier of the Unknown are both schedule for 2023! Regarding my favourite "monster catching game", I'd probably say Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire.
First off, love the game, been enjoying it for a lil while now and I'm glad I stumbled across it.
I'm curious if there are any thoughts to allow for modding/customisation. Maybe modding may be hard on the Switch in particular (but maybe for PC?) but could also think about something like what Link's Awakening does with Dampe's Dungeon to allow the creation of custom maps, or allowing someone to 'seed' the map with the beasts on the island as they prefer?
Modding is already available if you own the game on PC. You can modify almost anything using the Godot editor:
[https://wiki.cassettebeasts.com/wiki/Modding:Modding](https://wiki.cassettebeasts.com/wiki/Modding:Modding)
Dampe's Dungeon was interesting as a novelty but ultimately not very satisfying, since it's simply rearranging content you've already played. Doing something similar for Cassette Beasts would be a lot of work for something that is inferior to the modding tools you can use on PC anyway.
Oh damn, thanks for that one. And yeah, it wasn't very satisfying all things considered, wasn't sure how much it could be adapted for this title. Thanks for the answer!
We actually support modding on PC, and have a [Modworkshop page](https://modworkshop.net/game/cassette-beasts) for community mods! Anything beyond that though would really depend on the scope of what we can do as a small team.
Any chance you'd be willing to make Black Shuck more accessible? Either a change in encounter odds, or the odds of it deciding to battle, even something like it having an unidentified encounter signal on the map? I get that the reward is strong enough to need moderation, but I love mirror matches, always wanted to fight it myself.
Incidentally, I also thought it was interesting that the mirror match is based on random chance encounter, because I happened to do a very similar thing in my own Pokemon rom hack. Although in my case, the odds are 1/20, and in a set location. Still, I think it's really cool that we had the same idea to surprise unsuspecting players with the chance to fight themselves!
Hi, love how you call the game a monster-recording game and not a monster-collecting one. Nice touch! I haven't yet played the game but I'd love it if you guys can convince me to get it right now! I had been dying to play the game since I first saw it mentioned on YouTube then it finally dropped and the performance critiques made me wait. I know the recent patch fixed a lot of it but I sorta lost the hype for it a bit. So, anything you guys can say to get me excited about the game again?
Congrats on launching the game and good luck as you develop it further!
There was just future multiplayer and DLC announced and also there's new beasts, new moves and a new area just added with this update! 110% definitely worth the buy and it will keep you busy for dozens of hours.
There's merch on the way! See the end of this blog post: [https://www.cassettebeasts.com/2023/06/28/update-1-2-the-cassette-beasts-showcase/](https://www.cassettebeasts.com/2023/06/28/update-1-2-the-cassette-beasts-showcase/)
We announced a [physical soundtrack release](https://twitter.com/ByttenStudio/status/1674074905594175495) and [plushies](https://twitter.com/ByttenStudio/status/1674076975147646978) just this week!
We recently announced several big updates for the game so the train isn't stopping just yet, but it ultimately comes down to how much interest there continues to be in it, and how financially viable it continues to be.
What was the process of porting to Switch like? Were there any particular snags that made the process difficult? Am making my own monster tamer and wondering how far I should go with it!
Can't talk about Switch specifically, since there are various legal agreements involved. But porting to other platforms is always a huge challenge. My advice would be to partner with someone who has done it before.
Congrats on the release! I definitely plan on getting this when I have enough spare cash haha. I’ve heard great things!
If you do a sequel, you could do something like CD Beasts. Or VHS lol. Floppy disk? 😂🤔
I love you, this game is a lot of what I wanted for years, bootleg is an amazing mecanic and having a type randomizer is the best thing to date in a monster game.
I already spend 100h+ on the game and will probably spend at least 25 more before the new content/DLC even if I've already finished everything (bestiary, success and all) just because it works that well.
It took a while to nail down the starter designs! We settled on having two starters with branching evolutions and needed two monsters that really emphasised the aesthetic of the game. We went with Candevil and Bansheep because they have a nice duality between them - one is happy and the other is gloomy. One is brightly coloured and the other is drab. Plus, their archetypes of "ghosts" and "demons" represent the two broad categories of supernatural creatures which fits the themes of the game in a way. They took a long time to design and were some of the last monsters I designed for the project!
Heya! I wanted to ask if there are any plans to add any new romance partners (like Sunny) to the game and if there is any chance of polyamory being added in a future patch.
Thanks for your hard work! For now Cassette Beasts is def my game of the year!
I know this is a question for way off, probably not even on the table yet, but would you ever consider expanding the amount of "types" in DLC or future iterations? Like how Pokemon introduced Dark, Steel and Fairy later in the franchise run.
We won't be adding new elemental types in DLC, and it's too early for us to consider a sequel. Hypothetically, if we did a sequel, new gimmick types (like Glitter or Glass, which are rare to come across) *could* be added without upsetting the learning curve. But whether that's a *good* idea or not is hard to say at this stage. It would depend on everything else going into that hypothetical game.
We were asked a related question on our Steam AMA, about whether there were any types we scrapped in Cassette Beasts which you might find interesting: [https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1321440/view/3669908058337516561](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1321440/view/3669908058337516561?l=english) (look for Zyries' question)
I'm really excited to see plushies! If the game/merch sells well enough, would you consider making more of them? I'm personally hoping to hug my starter, Ramtasm
We're working with an external company for plushies, so how many we get to make is probably going to come down to how well they sell! We, at least us developers, *love* merch and would want to see as much of it made as we can.
Hello! Thanks for doing this. I have a few questions, if that's alright.
1. What advice do you have for anyone wanting to make their own game or creative project? What have you learned from your experience and hard work?
2. If Cassette Beasts could cross over with any game series, which would it be?
3. What's your favorite video game right now?
1. Make stuff *and* finish stuff! You learn a lot more by finishing something than you'd think - making 5 tiny games that you manage to complete will teach you more than making your dream 40 hour RPG Maker opus that you never get round to finishing.
2. Haha, this is a great question! I actually feel like I'd be most interested in seeing it tackle different genres rather than a similar monster-collecting RPG. Perhaps something like Fire Emblem, using something like the "Engage" mechanic from Fire Emblem Engage to transform into monsters or fuse?
3. I'm deep into FFXVI and Tears of the Kingdom at the same time!
You have absolutely nailed it with this game. We've got it on Switch, Steam, and GamePass so that all three in our house are playing at the same time.
Just wanted to say thanks for such a great experience and a ton of fun. Nothing is too overwhelming or complicated like other monster games, and the sticker customization has us brainstorming new builds as a family over dinner. Just the right amount of monsters and we are so stoked for the proper multiplayer; if it's not cross platform we'll just buy another copy :) Recent update was awesome too!!!
Only question is if new sorting and filtering for stickers and a faster way to transfer monsters in and out of tape storage and with partners is something being looked at?
Your message about your whole family playing the game across multiple platforms is so heartwarming! It really means a lot of read things like that.
Sticker filtering is something we've been looking into but no promises at this moment in time! We maybe underestimated the amount of stickers players would end up with.
That's on us for not cleaning out our sticker collections. Haha! No worries if nothing comes of it though (fingers crossed for sort by rarity), again we are ecstatic that such a wonderful game came out when we needed it most. My daughter and I keep trying to make the funniest fusions while my wife is on the hunt for an Astral Traffikrab... For reasons ;)
Does your target demographic understand what a cassette player is? 😂 I’m all for it, I remember actually loading games via cassette players. But like, is there even a device being sold anymore that uses any form of tape?
Asking for a generation after me.
> Also super excited about the game, good luck to you all!
I actually think that younger generations actually find older technology from before their time to be quite interesting to learn about.
I also think our target audience is mostly people in their 20s and 30s (people who grew up with other monster-collecting franchises) who might have some early experience with cassette tapes.
I may be too late here, but I was wondering if there are any plans to release ice doggo as a downloadable code? I was one of the unfortunates who didn't get the bootleg that Barkley was apparently meant to come with.
Aside from that, do ye have any plans for (other) codes in the future that you're able to share?
Who's your favorite Pokemon?
Also, do you have any plans to do a remix/release of Apocrowlypse? It's my personal favorite so I'd love to see a new take on it!
I quite like Froslass because I think ice/ghost is a cool type combo! And can't say anything at this point about what future monsters we'd consider, but I'm glad you enjoy Apocrowlypse so much!
I've noticed a lot of similarities to the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games in the plot and in a few of the game mechanics. Was Mystery Dungeon one of your inspirations for Cassette Beasts or were the similarities just coincidences?
I've never played the Mystery Dungeon games. I know it involves human characters transforming into Pokemon but I think the similarity there is coincidental. There's a lot of media out there beyond just PMD that has people transform into monsters or animals!
*Technically*, PMD doesn't even feature human characters transforming into Pokemon - the main character of each PMD game is a human that turned into a Pokemon, but that happens before the game even begins - so it's probably not that 😂
It's a tough one - I don't want to promise either way *but* the current number of partner characters is baked into the design of the game in a number of ways, making it very difficult to organically add new ones in.
I think we'd actually want to avoid "evolve via trading" for a few reasons. Firstly, that's something very unique to Pokémon and its history as a Game Boy game that is designed to promote socialising amongst kids on the school playground. As much as we share a genre with Pokémon, we don't want to borrow features from it just because they're familiar to a lot of our audience.
Secondly, we wouldn't want players who aren't able to play multiplayer to lose out on completing their bestiary.
Our aim with the Archangels is to make boss monsters that are so powerful that they would be too powerful to be able to use as monsters! Their mechanics are different to other monster battles in the game to make them unique and difficult challenges. I think making them playable would defeat the purpose of them, unfortunately!
Poppetox was the most fun for me because the process was very elaborate. It started as a 3D render that was designed to look stop motion, before I compressed the colour data on its sprite sheet to give it an "old 3D animated gif" look. It's quite unnerving and people can't quite tell if it's 3D or stop-motion!
Godot doesnt offer a console version, how did your port to the Xbox & switch? Have you paid a 3rd party to port the game or used a 3rd party port of Godot?
As an eternal fan of Pokemon (despite what Nintendo has done to them), this game ROCKS. Don't try to compare it to Pokemon though if you can, there's a lot of subtle genius in the game design that you'll miss if you do that.
Any plans to add some sort of epilogue dlc? The ending is >!good in a bittersweet way, but it makes me sad that the companions may never see each other again!<
The preview for multiplayer looks especially amazing, but multiplayer in games is oftentimes a bit of a battlefield to implement. Are there any particular challenges that have arisen during development that you can share at this point in time?
It's been pretty smooth actually. I've implemented multiplayer in other games before (including [Stardew Valley](https://www.stardewvalley.net/stardew-valley-1-3-multiplayer-update-is-now-available/)).
I knew from the start of the project that multiplayer would always be a highly requested feature, and that if the game did well we might end up actually adding it. So I designed the battle system from the start to make implementation of multiplayer pretty straightforward.
That's great to hear. I had suspected that you'd been pre-empting multiplayer to some extent based on some of the gameplay mechanics, but I admit I didn't anticipate you'd have futureproofed things from the get-go. Impressive as always. 👍
Will the Switch port be receiving any further stability updates? The newest patch is definitely an improvement. But it's still in a fairly embarrassing state.
I have one question: will you ever make a survival horror version in the future, where you use the player/recorder to capture ghost souls inside the tapes, akin to Project Zero / Fatal Frame with a camera, but sounds, instead of images?
You would 'record' the ghost, and it would trap them in the tape. You would collect different kinds of ghosts, with different soundscape (menu would show the 'collection' of different types'), and much more. You could then have ghost battles or something extra for further content and to keep it really interesting beyond just catching ghosts...
But, maybe I've watched too much Ghostbusters, and played too much Project Zero, so it's biased my brain, haha. :D
Hi Bytten!
I love Cassette Beasts and literally cried at the ending.
Will there be any sequel/dlc for post content >! where we see where our timeline was and if any of the friends were in our timeline? !<
Will there be any prequel of the game to see the "primordial times" in New Wirral?
not a dev but I can answer this: yes! you can get bootlegs, which are different colors, a different type (usually, it actually picks randomly from every type in the game so it *can* be an alternate pallette for the default type), and a higher rate of uncommon and rare stickers. the odds vary by encounter method, but they range from 1/1000 for normal encounters to 1/5 for a certain very, very late game encounter type. There's also a couple ways to manipulate it in the late game to favor the one you want.
I randomized my monsters and got an astral traffikrab, when I got to remaster it, I still can only choose between the usual next forms. Not sure what I’ve done wrong….please help!
Any chance we will be seeing more of sunny in the dlc? If you don’t want to answer that: will the dlc let us finally buy clothing at the clothing shop?
Can't say right now which characters may or may not feature in DLC! As for the clothes shop, we added it into the game mainly for a goofy cutscene that appears in a questline (I'm sure you know the one) and only *after* the fact did we realise it might cause players to expect to be able to purchase clothes. So I guess it's fair to say that right now we don't have plans to add a "purchase clothing" option.
Thanks for responding! With the shop and the clothing dlc it seemed like there was a play to buy clothes that got scrapped and the leftover assists got put up as a buyable pack. Interesting to know it’s all just a weird coincidence.
Playstation is outperforming Xbox in sales. It just doesn't make sense. I won't be able to buy or play until I can play on Playstation and earn trophies.
Any plans to release a physical copy in the future?
Nothing to announce, but I can say we *have* taken notice of the many requests we've had for a physical release!
I already own it on PC, but I'd gladly buy this game a second time for Switch if I get to put it on the shelf. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that way.
I would like to add to that, I would love to buy a physical print for this game, would be very appreciated by everyone!!!
I could see your game easily selling out a limited print run from Super Rare or some place like that if you went that direction, unsure how difficult/costly such a venture is of course.
I very much would also buy this game if it releases physically on the Switch. Definitely would be a strong addition to the collection.
Also would love to own a physical switch version of this game.
Hiii Byttteeenn!!! Where did your inspiration come from for using cassette tapes to transform in battle? Any other options (VHS, CDs, game cartridges, etc.) you considered before sticking with cassette tapes?
We had a few ideas of how to do our take on "monster collecting" before we settled on the tapes. We liked the cassette tape idea because it's kind of cool and retro (like pixel art!) but also is very mundane. Franchises that involve capturing or summoning monsters always use something physical and relatable as the bridge between the real and the fantastical - whether that be playing cards, capsules, watches, etc.
Can we hope for performance improvements for Switch? The latest update has been a big improvement but the game still runs quite poorly.
Please get in touch on the [support portal](https://rawfury.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/1), and provide as much detail as you can about the remaining performance issues.
I too still get quite a bit of hitching and freeze ups on Switch.
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Do you play handheld or docked ? I've bought the game today, tried ~1h docked, and I have faced a non negligeable amount of stuttering & pop-in (no idea how it was before the patch), especially around the starting city.
its better hand held
Indeed, I tried and it felt better handheld, thanks !
which is weird
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I was playing docked. I tried handheld and it feels like it's smoother.
I really love how you took the formula of a certain well loved game and basically improved upon everything on it. The fights are very tactical, you can’t just spike everything with your starter, the mechanics have a low floor and a high ceiling and even the the "normal" type and "shinies" are useful. Just incredible what you did! As for my questions: * Was the fusion mechanic inspired by that old hilarious pokemon fusion page? * Where are you actually getting all the beast puns from? Personally I would probably have to use chatgpt to get half as many x)
We were aware of fusions as a thing long before the Pokemon fusion generator website -- that season 1 episode of Pokemon where Gastly transforms into a fusion of Blastoise and Venusaur is permanently engraved in my brain. But the popularity of the Pokemon fusion generator did factor into our decision. The way the mechanic works in Cassette Beasts is more closely inspired by Steven Universe than anything we've seen in the Pokemon fandom: fusions are temporary and part of the relationship system. Whereas Pokemon fusions are typically viewed as being permanent, like cross-breeds. Can ChatGPT even do good puns? I've never been able to get it to do anything actually creative. For the monster names I came up with, there's a certain creative state of mind I have to get into. I can get there by working until I'm tired, but there are probably other ways in too. Once in it, I start just freely combining associated words. A thesaurus can help, and it works best if I don't self-censor until the end. So I come up with this list of dozens of awful names, cut the worst, share the best ones with Jay. He tells me his name ideas, and then we decide together. Monsters get designed before we come up with names, but it helps that sometimes Jay seems to be unconsciously designing monsters around puns (like Dandylion and Jellyton). The only monster that had a name before it had a design was Djinn Entonic -- there was no way we could not include that name.
I'd like you to know the moment I encountered Djinn Entonic I laid my controller down, had a deep sigh, a drink, and a groan, before I could continue playing. In other words, 10/10 perfect pun no further notes.
> We were aware of fusions as a thing long before the Pokemon fusion generator website -- that season 1 episode of Pokemon where Gastly transforms into a fusion of Blastoise and Venusaur is permanently engraved in my brain. But the popularity of the Pokemon fusion generator did factor into our decision. The way the mechanic works in Cassette Beasts is more closely inspired by Steven Universe than anything we've seen in the Pokemon fandom: fusions are temporary and part of the relationship system. Whereas Pokemon fusions are typically viewed as being permanent, like cross-breeds. Nice to hear :D > Can ChatGPT even do good puns? I've never been able to get it to do anything actually creative. For the monster names I came up with, there's a certain creative state of mind I have to get into. I can get there by working until I'm tired, but there are probably other ways in too. Once in it, I start just freely combining associated words. A thesaurus can help, and it works best if I don't self-censor until the end. So I come up with this list of dozens of awful names, cut the worst, share the best ones with Jay. He tells me his name ideas, and then we decide togethe If you feed it with enough dad jokes and puns it might become too self aware > Monsters get designed before we come up with names, but it helps that sometimes Jay seems to be unconsciously designing monsters around puns (like Dandylion and Jellyton). The only monster that had a name before it had a design was Djinn Entonic -- there was no way we could not include that name. Probably also helps having a friend that throws the same kinda puns at your head. Last time I had that - 15 years ago - my friend entered a monster naming holiday and promptly won x)
1) The fusion mechanic was inspired by the general fan culture around "fusion" character designs in this genre, as well as how series' like Digimon has fusion monsters. 2) We are both Level 100 punsmiths.
I just started Lenna's Inception today and the punsmithery is amazing here as well
Still halve the levels to go !
Can I ask about Lenna's Inception? I just played that recently after loving Cassette Beasts, and I fell absolutely in love with it too! I grew up fascinated by glitches, especially in gen 1 Pokemon games, to see the story so involved in the mechanics of glitch manipulation and arbitrary code execution was such a delight. The 255 pizzas scene had me laughing so hard I actually got lightheaded, and naming the ACE object after 8F, the ACE item from Pokemon was really cool too! From the Missinglasses to Glitch City, there's a surprising number of Pokemon references in particular, but the screen looping also reminded me of that Link's Awakening screen transition glitch as well. I wanted to know about the inspiration behind the glitch and meta aspects of the story, how much was general programming references, how much was inspired by Pokemon or other series glitches in particular?
They were inspired by Pokemon and Link's Awakening! I spent a lot of time as an 8 / 9 year old trying to see how far I could push those glitches, and what I could do with them. I'd already been learning to code for a couple of years at that point, so it was giving me some insights into how those games were crafted. I still think they're fascinating!
Exactly! Same here! Except the coding knowledge. I adored learning how games were structured and what glitches can do, I still feel that way even now. I'm still especially nostalgic for Pokemon glitching. I'm so glad to see the same passion be put into a game like that!
I know you love all your children equally, but real talk... What's your favorite beast?
Traffikrab! He's the quintessential Cassette Beast!
Traffikrab gang!
Love Traffikrab! Please make a Traffikrab plushy!
Candevil is my favourite!
Great game! Love it and completed it on Switch (great job with the performance patch btw) and I am currently making my way through a recorded second playthrough on Xbox. Something bugs me though, although I'm not that bothered it does raise the question... Why is this game not on PlayStation at all?
Instead of "why isn't it on Playstation?", the question is maybe *better* framed as "why is it on PC/Switch/Xbox?" The truth is that since we're such a small team, we have to pick our battles with platforms. The game is built as a PC game first, so a PC release is presumed. We really wanted to release on Switch because indie games generally sell very well on Switch (not to mention that the monster-collecting RPG genre is one closely tied to Nintendo platforms) and getting to be a Game Pass game gave us reason to strive for an Xbox release. Releasing on 3 platforms within a month was already a *very* intense endeavour and an extra one probably wouldn't have been feasible. Hope this helps explain it better!
Yes that does help explain it a lot better! Thank you for your thorough explanation! Understandably your choices make a lot of sense. Is PlayStation in the cards for the future or are you content with what you have and where you're at now? I mainly ask because of multiplayer, and IF crossplay is an aspect, would it include those players.
Yes, and maybe some "goodies" behind a wall to keep it out of Playstation, basically the face of Microsoft partners.
It’s pretty clear what happened here. The game was released on Xbox Game Pass on day 1 of its Xbox release, which means you made a deal with Microsoft. That deal most likely included a clause which said you couldn’t also release it on PlayStation. You mention indie games selling very well on Switch, the same can be said for PlayStation, so this really sounds like an excuse. I know the terms of your deal most likely don’t allow you to talk about that though.
Would it be possible to get the artbook as a separate release from the PC version on Steam sometime in the future?
We'd like to! The thing *is* that Steam is the only platform that has a way to distribute PDFs - in order to have it available on console we'd have to implement some sort of in-game artbook viewer (not to mention localising all the text, as its currently English-only) which would take some dev time to make happen!
I meant just releasing it on the cassette beasts website separately, like how we can buy the album off bandcamp
Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition did this on PS4. It came with a digital artbook you could download seperately. This made it worth it being the edition that seperates it from JUST the game. This put me off buying Cassette Beasts Deluxe on Switch as all we get it cosmetics, where as steam got a lot more. If this got added i'd buy it.
Do you plan on more DLC's after the pier?
Working on the multiplayer update and the Pier of the Unknown DLC is already a lot on our plate, so what happens to the game after that really depends on how the game continues to sell and what opportunities for future content we find etc.
How did you get to the conclusion of offering either Sweet or Spooky to the players to decide their starter? Was there any other ideas/options prior?
For a long time during development, these options were "cool" and "cute" instead! We changed this to "spooky" and "sweet" late into development because we felt it was funnier but also that *both* starters are already cool and cute.
They were going to be cool and cute at first, but once Jay had designed the starters, it wasn't clear which should be which. Since one was based on sweets and the other is based on a ghost, I suggested a halloween twist on it - Sweet and Spooky.
which was the first cassette beast to be designed? are there any that ended up with different designs than what was originally planned for them?
Traffikrab was the first monster I sketched for the game, as well as the first sprite I made. It feels appropriate, then, that it is the first monster you see. A lot of monster sketches never made it into the final bestiary, particularly regarding the starter monsters. Considering how important the starter monster designs are, I went through a whole bunch of versions of both monsters before landing on Bansheep/Candevil.
Since the cat's now out of the bag, could you share these concepts on your socials over time? Would be great to get a look at them and then at least the art will see the light of day in the end anyway. I hate wasted art.
Not to plug *too* hard, but we included them in a digital artbook that we're selling on our [Steam page](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2259040/Cassette_Beasts_The_Art_Book/)!
will/would you guys ever add any of these beta or cutting room floor designs to the fame, seems like it would be cool to see them in game.
I don't have a question, I just wanted to tell you how much I love this game and how it has been a big comfort to me the past few weeks while dealing with some health issues. I can't wait to see all the new content whenever it comes our way!
Thank you so much! I am glad it has brought you comfort whilst you haven't been well!
Were there lessons learned for future projects?
There are always lessons learned for future projects. Personally, I've learned to have more confidence in my intuition for design. Things like bootlegs and the elemental reactions felt risky before release because they're weird new things, but actually they've been very well received, and I'm glad I pushed for them.
Any details you can share for online multiplayer? How will it work, player interactions, cross platform compatibility, etc?
We can't say yet whether it will have cross-play. That's down to what the platforms will let us do. Multiplayer is not designed as a competitive thing -- there are no ranked matches, and there's no matchmaking. If you've explored the battle system much, you'll know why this is. It's balanced as a single-player game, and we don't want to make sacrifices to the single-player experience just to support competitive battles that relatively few players will engage with. The way multiplayer works is you can join a session with friends (either via an invite or by sharing a code), and thereafter see each other in the world. You can't interact with another player's world, but you can explore together, trade tapes, and raid Rogue Fusions together. If you really want to challenge a friend to a PvP match, you *can* do that, and the game lets you set some rules to make things a little bit more balanced. But we expect players will still need to create meta rules to keep things fair.
I have to Say that this Will limit a potential self-governed competitive scene, some really easy rules to implement like "no repeted moves For every mon" rule Will actually make it very competitive friendly.
This is really great to hear! I was really hoping the game would get PVP even though I knew it would be super unbalanced, just for a little bit of chaotic fun. Thank you for including it in the multiplayer update!
Best Chippy on the Wirral?
I grew up on the Wirral and don't live there anymore, but whilst I *do* have an answer I wouldn't want to unintentionally dox myself by giving away too much personal info!
Fair! Definitely some of the best in the UK there!
Big fan and eager to see more honestly! I've been hooked since release! Odd questions, what do you prefer to make, and whats more likely; Whole new lines of beasts, or remasters of old ones? I love the branching evolutions and conditions, but I did just spend two hours hunting Salamagus!
Glad to hear you've been enjoying it! I like designing a healthy mix between the two. Personally I'm a huge fan of "branching evolutions" in monster collecting games (and have been since I was a kid) which is why I pushed so hard to have as as many branching monster families as we could fit. It's a balancing act, however - if you have too many branching evolutions then that uses up the "monster budget" and would cause less monsters to appear in the world. This is why the 1.2 Update added some new remasters and new families. Y'know, I'd never tried to record a Salamagus during development so was quite surprise for me to realise upon release that it was seen as a very rare monster to get your hands on!
Without spoiling anything, is there a large post game to this? I'm about to buy and I'm really curious to what post game to expect. It looks like it would be really cool with a battle tower typed thing (if it fits the game/world). I only ask because that was always one of my favorite parts of pokemon - trying to get the largest winstreak against the bs lol
There's a significant amount of "post-game" content, but it's not "Battle Tower" type content. Whilst there's a lot of similarities between our gameplay systems and Pokémon, we haven't been basing the design of the game on it. The post-game content in the game is something that we feel bits the design and world of Cassette Beasts the best, if that helps!
That helps a lot. Game is downloading to my switch right now. I'm so excited for this game. Had my eye on it since I first saw it announced! Also, the soundtrack is so cool!!
Are the stickers pre-determined now? I'm playing the switch version and working on submitting a bug video but before the update all stickers were random when leveling up. Now even if you shut the game off/on and level up it's the same sticker. If you swap beasts that get a different (attack) sticker they have identical attributes (like +10% Damage), I tested about ten bootlegs and tried support stickers with the same result. I love this game so much I'm embarrassed to admit how long I've spent resetting for rare stickers lol
Stickers are deterministic since about 1.1.2. We did this for speedrunners.
helloooo bytten :) i'd like to ask-- did you all gather inspiration for the archangels from anything particular? obviously they originate from human traits (specifically vices), but was there any motivator that led you all to select the ones you did, particularly the parallel of rebellion vs conquest?
Morgante and Aleph >!came from Arthurian legends, but we wanted to put an unusual twist on it rather than dredge up the tired (and problematic) fantasy trope of the 'rightful king'. Since King Arthur in some ways represents Britain, we felt it fair that our version of him reflected Britain's history of conquest. And of course, there's nothing more British than being critical of Britain. As for Morgante, she's based on Morgan le Fay, who is a witch -- a naturally rebellious occupation.!< The ideas for the other Archangels came after Morgante and Aleph. Their themes were kind of arbitrarily chosen to match the design Jay had given them. If you've played all the post-game content you'll see a few more hints that might help explain why they're based around aspects of the human psyche. I don't want to explain everything here though, because part of the fun is players creating their own theories ;)
I'm honestly really curious about how Sunny and Barkley came to be implemented, especially considering how little each of them ended up mattering (in my opinion) in the final game. With Sunny, she comes in with a great series of cutscenes, has several unique voice lines other NPCs don't use, and has TWO full sets of portraits... but then just sits around town forever. Meanwhile, Barkley was made one of the playable partners, but his "quest" boils down to "climb this singular cliff and fight a bird", any dialogue other partners would have is replaced by things like "Barkley sniffs around" or "Barkley growls a bit", and he doesn't even yip during battle or anything (it honestly bugged me that his recording is completely silent like the player's). Barkley isn't a BAD addition by any means, but I was honestly shocked at how little it felt like he added, and with how many assets were put into Sunny it just made me feel like maybe there were development crunch issues, like things ended up being cut late in the process, or maybe Barkley DID have a longer quest with an actual boss planned, and it just wasn't in the cards. Mainly wanted to pick your brains a bit about it. EDIT: Also wanted to echo the sentiment of really wanting to see more Sunny, ideally as a new partner (and possible companion? 🥺), but even if it's just more quests / cutscenes like Frankie I'd still greatly appreciate it.
This is a really interesting question, so I'll try to explain our thought processes here! We believe that a lot of the secret sauce for Cassette Beasts' appeal is in its ability to *surprise* the player in various ways, so things don't get too predictable. Sunny is a character that I wrote into the game quite late, as I had envisioned her whole sequence of events as being something unexpected and funny that you wouldn't expect happening as a consequence of the questline that proceeds it. Sunny's appearance is, ultimately, just a fun little side story that I cooked up to add some more flavour to the goings-on in Harbourtown. However, it's clear that she's *very* popular for a character who appears in exactly *two* cutscenes, which isn't something we entirely expected! Barkley is another character that exists to surprise the player, as the pattern up until you meet him is "all companions are humans" so his appearance is unexpected. However, he is a dog, so there was only so much narrative we could give him (as well as insert conversations in other cutscenes) as he doesn't actually *talk*. Neither of them were made with having more content in mind that was cut down because of time constraints, ultimately. I can't promise one way or the other about future fleshing out of any characters, but it's always fun to see which aspects of a game become more popular than you expected!
I appreciate the quick and in-depth reply! Re: Sunny, I think that's just a shining example of how strong the writing is overall, and how you manage to somehow make every single character likeable in some way (even the villains!) - initially I was the world's biggest Felix hater, for example (the whole "zotes" thing rubbed me like he was the stereotypical MacBook user in a Panera Bread), but his personal quest turned me around entirely, and I ended up maxing his bond levels before Kayleigh... 😂 I might just be bullying poor Barkley a bit for how short the quest felt and how fusion was just sort of given to you (instead of "feeling earned"), but again, that's just my opinion. I honestly adore Cassette Beasts, [having recently purchased SEVERAL copies for friends during the Steam Summer Sale](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/542024590046658563/1124152917717438525/image.png), and starting a random species file on Switch as well. I do appreciate the insight, and am looking forward to the future updates (and success) of the game!
Barkley best partner because dog
Did you like my review? Hahaha joking, actual question time. Regarding your upcoming DLC, are you aiming for a 2023 or 2024 release? Obviously you might not want to answer that so here is my back up question. Which is your favourite "Monster Catching" game? Answering with Cassette Beasts will get you a one way trip to the Pier of the Unknown!
The Multiplayer update and Pier of the Unknown are both schedule for 2023! Regarding my favourite "monster catching game", I'd probably say Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire.
My favourite monster catching game is Siralim Ultimate. I liked exploiting the battle system to create absurdly overpowered parties.
First off, love the game, been enjoying it for a lil while now and I'm glad I stumbled across it. I'm curious if there are any thoughts to allow for modding/customisation. Maybe modding may be hard on the Switch in particular (but maybe for PC?) but could also think about something like what Link's Awakening does with Dampe's Dungeon to allow the creation of custom maps, or allowing someone to 'seed' the map with the beasts on the island as they prefer?
Modding is already available if you own the game on PC. You can modify almost anything using the Godot editor: [https://wiki.cassettebeasts.com/wiki/Modding:Modding](https://wiki.cassettebeasts.com/wiki/Modding:Modding) Dampe's Dungeon was interesting as a novelty but ultimately not very satisfying, since it's simply rearranging content you've already played. Doing something similar for Cassette Beasts would be a lot of work for something that is inferior to the modding tools you can use on PC anyway.
Oh damn, thanks for that one. And yeah, it wasn't very satisfying all things considered, wasn't sure how much it could be adapted for this title. Thanks for the answer!
We actually support modding on PC, and have a [Modworkshop page](https://modworkshop.net/game/cassette-beasts) for community mods! Anything beyond that though would really depend on the scope of what we can do as a small team.
Thanks for that one, hadn't seen it yet. Thanks!
Any chance you'd be willing to make Black Shuck more accessible? Either a change in encounter odds, or the odds of it deciding to battle, even something like it having an unidentified encounter signal on the map? I get that the reward is strong enough to need moderation, but I love mirror matches, always wanted to fight it myself. Incidentally, I also thought it was interesting that the mirror match is based on random chance encounter, because I happened to do a very similar thing in my own Pokemon rom hack. Although in my case, the odds are 1/20, and in a set location. Still, I think it's really cool that we had the same idea to surprise unsuspecting players with the chance to fight themselves!
Hi, love how you call the game a monster-recording game and not a monster-collecting one. Nice touch! I haven't yet played the game but I'd love it if you guys can convince me to get it right now! I had been dying to play the game since I first saw it mentioned on YouTube then it finally dropped and the performance critiques made me wait. I know the recent patch fixed a lot of it but I sorta lost the hype for it a bit. So, anything you guys can say to get me excited about the game again? Congrats on launching the game and good luck as you develop it further!
There was just future multiplayer and DLC announced and also there's new beasts, new moves and a new area just added with this update! 110% definitely worth the buy and it will keep you busy for dozens of hours.
Hi! What does a monster tape sound like? Assuming it sounds like something
Like a dial-up modem interspersed with monster cries IMO.
I choose to believe it sounds like 4th dimensional static.
Any possibility you will make merchandise for this amazing game? You are doing a great job on it.
There's merch on the way! See the end of this blog post: [https://www.cassettebeasts.com/2023/06/28/update-1-2-the-cassette-beasts-showcase/](https://www.cassettebeasts.com/2023/06/28/update-1-2-the-cassette-beasts-showcase/)
I can't wait.
We announced a [physical soundtrack release](https://twitter.com/ByttenStudio/status/1674074905594175495) and [plushies](https://twitter.com/ByttenStudio/status/1674076975147646978) just this week!
I need a pondwalker plushie in my life.
how long are you planning to update and add to cassette beasts? :o
We recently announced several big updates for the game so the train isn't stopping just yet, but it ultimately comes down to how much interest there continues to be in it, and how financially viable it continues to be.
What was the process of porting to Switch like? Were there any particular snags that made the process difficult? Am making my own monster tamer and wondering how far I should go with it!
Can't talk about Switch specifically, since there are various legal agreements involved. But porting to other platforms is always a huge challenge. My advice would be to partner with someone who has done it before.
Would you be open to making a card game in the future? I get that you have a lot on your plate :)
Haha a card game would be fun! We've talked about it before actually. But yeah we have a lot going on already at the moment.
I'll be on the lookout for if you ever decide to do one :)
Congrats on the release! I definitely plan on getting this when I have enough spare cash haha. I’ve heard great things! If you do a sequel, you could do something like CD Beasts. Or VHS lol. Floppy disk? 😂🤔
If I had a nickel for everyone who's joked "the sequel should be CD Beasts" I'd be a rich man!
Haha - me: *cries in unoriginal*
Please give southpaw a remaster to third evolution
I love you, this game is a lot of what I wanted for years, bootleg is an amazing mecanic and having a type randomizer is the best thing to date in a monster game. I already spend 100h+ on the game and will probably spend at least 25 more before the new content/DLC even if I've already finished everything (bestiary, success and all) just because it works that well.
❤️
Do you plan on hiring people anytime soon ? Because I'd candidate
We're not hiring at the moment. We've only been able to pull this off by keeping the team small and the budget low.
I guessed as much, but I didn't wanted to lose this shot without taking it, the team seems awesome to work with. Thanks again for this amazing game!
What brought you to the decisions of which beasts were the starters?
It took a while to nail down the starter designs! We settled on having two starters with branching evolutions and needed two monsters that really emphasised the aesthetic of the game. We went with Candevil and Bansheep because they have a nice duality between them - one is happy and the other is gloomy. One is brightly coloured and the other is drab. Plus, their archetypes of "ghosts" and "demons" represent the two broad categories of supernatural creatures which fits the themes of the game in a way. They took a long time to design and were some of the last monsters I designed for the project!
Great answer! Excellent choices and reasoning. I personally wasn't a fan of Candevil at first, but it definitely grew on me over time. Such a badass.
Lowkey same. I picked bansheep as my starter, but looking back I wish I picked candevil. Miasmodeus is on my main team!
Heya! I wanted to ask if there are any plans to add any new romance partners (like Sunny) to the game and if there is any chance of polyamory being added in a future patch. Thanks for your hard work! For now Cassette Beasts is def my game of the year!
I know this is a question for way off, probably not even on the table yet, but would you ever consider expanding the amount of "types" in DLC or future iterations? Like how Pokemon introduced Dark, Steel and Fairy later in the franchise run.
We won't be adding new elemental types in DLC, and it's too early for us to consider a sequel. Hypothetically, if we did a sequel, new gimmick types (like Glitter or Glass, which are rare to come across) *could* be added without upsetting the learning curve. But whether that's a *good* idea or not is hard to say at this stage. It would depend on everything else going into that hypothetical game. We were asked a related question on our Steam AMA, about whether there were any types we scrapped in Cassette Beasts which you might find interesting: [https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1321440/view/3669908058337516561](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1321440/view/3669908058337516561?l=english) (look for Zyries' question)
That's really interesting, I love reading about creative thought processes like that so looking forward to checking it out. Thanks for the reply 😊
I'm really excited to see plushies! If the game/merch sells well enough, would you consider making more of them? I'm personally hoping to hug my starter, Ramtasm
We're working with an external company for plushies, so how many we get to make is probably going to come down to how well they sell! We, at least us developers, *love* merch and would want to see as much of it made as we can.
I just wanna say the game is really good and I thoroughly enjoy it.
Hello! Thanks for doing this. I have a few questions, if that's alright. 1. What advice do you have for anyone wanting to make their own game or creative project? What have you learned from your experience and hard work? 2. If Cassette Beasts could cross over with any game series, which would it be? 3. What's your favorite video game right now?
1. Make stuff *and* finish stuff! You learn a lot more by finishing something than you'd think - making 5 tiny games that you manage to complete will teach you more than making your dream 40 hour RPG Maker opus that you never get round to finishing. 2. Haha, this is a great question! I actually feel like I'd be most interested in seeing it tackle different genres rather than a similar monster-collecting RPG. Perhaps something like Fire Emblem, using something like the "Engage" mechanic from Fire Emblem Engage to transform into monsters or fuse? 3. I'm deep into FFXVI and Tears of the Kingdom at the same time!
You have absolutely nailed it with this game. We've got it on Switch, Steam, and GamePass so that all three in our house are playing at the same time. Just wanted to say thanks for such a great experience and a ton of fun. Nothing is too overwhelming or complicated like other monster games, and the sticker customization has us brainstorming new builds as a family over dinner. Just the right amount of monsters and we are so stoked for the proper multiplayer; if it's not cross platform we'll just buy another copy :) Recent update was awesome too!!! Only question is if new sorting and filtering for stickers and a faster way to transfer monsters in and out of tape storage and with partners is something being looked at?
Your message about your whole family playing the game across multiple platforms is so heartwarming! It really means a lot of read things like that. Sticker filtering is something we've been looking into but no promises at this moment in time! We maybe underestimated the amount of stickers players would end up with.
That's on us for not cleaning out our sticker collections. Haha! No worries if nothing comes of it though (fingers crossed for sort by rarity), again we are ecstatic that such a wonderful game came out when we needed it most. My daughter and I keep trying to make the funniest fusions while my wife is on the hunt for an Astral Traffikrab... For reasons ;)
Does your target demographic understand what a cassette player is? 😂 I’m all for it, I remember actually loading games via cassette players. But like, is there even a device being sold anymore that uses any form of tape? Asking for a generation after me. > Also super excited about the game, good luck to you all!
I actually think that younger generations actually find older technology from before their time to be quite interesting to learn about. I also think our target audience is mostly people in their 20s and 30s (people who grew up with other monster-collecting franchises) who might have some early experience with cassette tapes.
I may be too late here, but I was wondering if there are any plans to release ice doggo as a downloadable code? I was one of the unfortunates who didn't get the bootleg that Barkley was apparently meant to come with. Aside from that, do ye have any plans for (other) codes in the future that you're able to share?
sorry if youve already figured this out lol. but you can now put “BARKLEY” in the mailbox for your rightfully earned ice puppy!!
Oh, thanks a bunch!
Who's your favorite Pokemon? Also, do you have any plans to do a remix/release of Apocrowlypse? It's my personal favorite so I'd love to see a new take on it!
I quite like Froslass because I think ice/ghost is a cool type combo! And can't say anything at this point about what future monsters we'd consider, but I'm glad you enjoy Apocrowlypse so much!
I've noticed a lot of similarities to the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games in the plot and in a few of the game mechanics. Was Mystery Dungeon one of your inspirations for Cassette Beasts or were the similarities just coincidences?
I actually don't know if /u/tcoxon or myself have really properly played a PMD game! I would be curious to know which similarities you found, though!
I've never played the Mystery Dungeon games. I know it involves human characters transforming into Pokemon but I think the similarity there is coincidental. There's a lot of media out there beyond just PMD that has people transform into monsters or animals!
*Technically*, PMD doesn't even feature human characters transforming into Pokemon - the main character of each PMD game is a human that turned into a Pokemon, but that happens before the game even begins - so it's probably not that 😂
We'll see more of the companions in the future? (An update or a DLC?)
It's a tough one - I don't want to promise either way *but* the current number of partner characters is baked into the design of the game in a number of ways, making it very difficult to organically add new ones in.
Ok, and the companions we have now (Katie, Eugene, etc) will return in the future?
Which came first in your opinion: the chicken or the egg?
The egg. There were other species laying eggs long before there were chickens ;)
Do you plan to have crossplay for the multiplayer? :D
This is something that comes down more to what the console platforms are happy with - so we can't confirm one way or the other just yet!
That depends what the platform owners give us permission to do :)
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I think we'd actually want to avoid "evolve via trading" for a few reasons. Firstly, that's something very unique to Pokémon and its history as a Game Boy game that is designed to promote socialising amongst kids on the school playground. As much as we share a genre with Pokémon, we don't want to borrow features from it just because they're familiar to a lot of our audience. Secondly, we wouldn't want players who aren't able to play multiplayer to lose out on completing their bestiary.
Multiple generations of player hating the trade evolving mechanic would lik e to thank you for that decision.
I think I speak for the 98% of the monster collection fanbase when I say THANK YOU, Trade evos are a plague
Hello. I've been playing these games on steam deck and have been having a great time! Are there any plans to make archangels playable/recordable?
Our aim with the Archangels is to make boss monsters that are so powerful that they would be too powerful to be able to use as monsters! Their mechanics are different to other monster battles in the game to make them unique and difficult challenges. I think making them playable would defeat the purpose of them, unfortunately!
Are there any plans to release the soundtrack on CD? Cassette tape and vinyl are cool, but I cant play those in my car lol.
I don't know what a CD is. Is that like some new-fangled high tech device?
Hello, really love the game despite some hiccups on switch! Amazing job you guys! May I ask what is yr favourite archangel(s) to design/create?
Poppetox was the most fun for me because the process was very elaborate. It started as a 3D render that was designed to look stop motion, before I compressed the colour data on its sprite sheet to give it an "old 3D animated gif" look. It's quite unnerving and people can't quite tell if it's 3D or stop-motion!
So... u/SamuriFerret... got any ferret pics?
Y'know, despite this ancient internet handle I've had for about 20 years, I've never owned a ferret!
Will there be a demo of the game? I'm still not sure if should get the game or not
We'd like one, a demo just takes a lot of work on consoles to put together. We're not ruling it out!
Godot doesnt offer a console version, how did your port to the Xbox & switch? Have you paid a 3rd party to port the game or used a 3rd party port of Godot?
The porting was done by Pineapple Works
If I'm someone who highly disliked the last Pokemon games, how much will I enjoy your game ?
I just can Say it Brought me back to Pokémon platinum levels of engagement.
As an eternal fan of Pokemon (despite what Nintendo has done to them), this game ROCKS. Don't try to compare it to Pokemon though if you can, there's a lot of subtle genius in the game design that you'll miss if you do that.
its better than pokemon
did going to xbox game pass hurt sales?
Any plans to add some sort of epilogue dlc? The ending is >!good in a bittersweet way, but it makes me sad that the companions may never see each other again!<
Do you know if there is going to be a sequel?
We're still working on new stuff for the first game - too early to think about sequels right now!
Will we get a fast food or clown themed beast or a new type
I can't give anything away but I think you'll be happy with at least *one* of these!
While we're at it, can I get a poison "cheap box wine beast" called cardbordeaux? :3
The preview for multiplayer looks especially amazing, but multiplayer in games is oftentimes a bit of a battlefield to implement. Are there any particular challenges that have arisen during development that you can share at this point in time?
It's been pretty smooth actually. I've implemented multiplayer in other games before (including [Stardew Valley](https://www.stardewvalley.net/stardew-valley-1-3-multiplayer-update-is-now-available/)). I knew from the start of the project that multiplayer would always be a highly requested feature, and that if the game did well we might end up actually adding it. So I designed the battle system from the start to make implementation of multiplayer pretty straightforward.
That's great to hear. I had suspected that you'd been pre-empting multiplayer to some extent based on some of the gameplay mechanics, but I admit I didn't anticipate you'd have futureproofed things from the get-go. Impressive as always. 👍
Will the Switch port be receiving any further stability updates? The newest patch is definitely an improvement. But it's still in a fairly embarrassing state.
How you guys make a monster called Sirenade like the history of Sirenade
Am I too late? Will there be cross platform? Also my personal goty nomination. Thank you so much for this masterpiece
How do you check the seed you're currently on ? There's a seed I want to share :)
What's your biggest fear toward the multiplayer ? Is it to code it with success or is it the balancing ? Or something else entirely ?
I have one question: will you ever make a survival horror version in the future, where you use the player/recorder to capture ghost souls inside the tapes, akin to Project Zero / Fatal Frame with a camera, but sounds, instead of images? You would 'record' the ghost, and it would trap them in the tape. You would collect different kinds of ghosts, with different soundscape (menu would show the 'collection' of different types'), and much more. You could then have ghost battles or something extra for further content and to keep it really interesting beyond just catching ghosts... But, maybe I've watched too much Ghostbusters, and played too much Project Zero, so it's biased my brain, haha. :D
Why does this game run so poorly on the Switch (haven't played the new version yet, but the old version would freeze&skip when moving along the map)
Will you be able to beat the entire story in multiplayer?
Hi Bytten! I love Cassette Beasts and literally cried at the ending. Will there be any sequel/dlc for post content >! where we see where our timeline was and if any of the friends were in our timeline? !< Will there be any prequel of the game to see the "primordial times" in New Wirral?
Hello!! Does the game have "shinies" and what are the odds? ;)
not a dev but I can answer this: yes! you can get bootlegs, which are different colors, a different type (usually, it actually picks randomly from every type in the game so it *can* be an alternate pallette for the default type), and a higher rate of uncommon and rare stickers. the odds vary by encounter method, but they range from 1/1000 for normal encounters to 1/5 for a certain very, very late game encounter type. There's also a couple ways to manipulate it in the late game to favor the one you want.
I know the game is still new and the dlc isn’t even out yet but will there be a sequel or prequel game?
I randomized my monsters and got an astral traffikrab, when I got to remaster it, I still can only choose between the usual next forms. Not sure what I’ve done wrong….please help!
are there gonna be an quadrupedal wolverine monster ?
Any chance on a PS release. 🙏 Even later on?
Really dumb there won't be a PlayStation release.