The Gamer Social Club UK team recently attended London Games Festival (see footer for further coverage) and had hands-on time with many very exciting upcoming titles.
One of the most exciting and unique titles from the show, Showrunners is an upcoming single-player speedrunning platformer with influence from the likes of Jet Set Radio and other cult titles. We were delighted to catch up with Ben Green, Founder and Creative Director at Mothlight Studio to talk about their debut game.
Showrunners Hands-On
Before the interview which you can read below, here’s a brief summary of my hands-on time with Showrunners.
This is a momentum-based speedrunning game with Jet Set rollerskating DNA that takes place in a game show. In the LGF demo, I had hands-on with some early stages that were full of different routes and shortcuts. Simply racing to the finish line isn’t the only objective in Showrunners, the developers want you to get there with panache. Grinding rails, leaping across wide gaps and popping an array of tricks felt run and responsive. It’s clear that the developers have community leaderboards in mind, for both times and scores.
Whilst the handful of moves and tricks available in the demo were stylish, I’m assured by the developers there will be more when the game unlocks, offering the chance to repeat stages for faster times. In my first attempt I missed many jumps, but it was fun to retackle the same sections knowing how I could better my time with more speed and different paths. Replayability is core to the experience. There’s also Mario-like level select map for Showrunners game show setting which I really liked..
This was an early snippet of what’s to come from a passionate new studio and I’m excited to see more later this year.
Showrunners Interview
First of all, congratulations on being selected for LGF! Tell our audience a little more about the studio and Showrunners.
Thank you for the kind words. Our studio, Mothlight Studio was formed last year after we all graduated from university. We first took part in the events called Tranzfuser and following on from that, Dundev. These two events built the foundations for our studio in understanding the business side as well as the creative side to becoming a successful studio. Showrunners came to be by individually analysing everyone’s strengths and interests to find the equilibrium between us all.
Speaking to the team at LGF, we spoke about inspirations for the game. There’s some Jet Set Radio art style influence here which is great to see, though I understand Neon White is a big inspiration. Tell us more about Showrunner’s origins.
Our games were initially heavily inspired by Jet Set Radio and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, supporting a more open city level design with a retro/futuristic aesthetic combo. However, after much iteration and testing, the direction changed quite a bit due to our team discovering the enjoyment of racing the character controller on an obstacle course trying to beat each other’s times. This resulted in a push towards a similar design philosophy to Neon White, where finding the fastest time with quick replaceable levels was the game loop. This also spurred the theme to be based in a game show, using an evil show host as a clichéd plot device.
What I liked about the game is that it isn’t just reaching the end as fast as possible, it’s about doing it in style. What can we expect from the game’s movement upgrades?
Movement is essential to our game. We’re constantly fine tuning to make it feel fluid, responsive and rewarding without losing its core identity. To enhance the sensations and feeling like you’re in control and being rewarded for flawless and seamless passage through levels using jumps, dashes, slides and more. Players can expect to clear previous levels much quicker with the movement upgrades once they unlock them. It will hopefully encourage replayability and experimentation to figure out shortcuts only possible through having all unlocks.
The speedrunning community is very passionate about their genre. What are your plans for leaderboards and competitive play?
The way we envision competitiveness in our game is through global leaderboards, we want our community to compete and push one another to achieve the fastest times possible on our levels to permanently, or temporarily have their names etched on the global rankings. Something as simple as leaderboards can encourage players to refine their strategies, continuously improving their performance and discover new techniques for clearing levels.
Moving closer to launch, are there plans for players to get their hands on via a demo or playtest?
We have a demo in the works to be put on Steam prior to launch to give players an early look at the base experience. We do run our own internal playtests with members of our Discord, usually to test levels out new features and movement tweaks we have made. This helps with our decision making and ensures the final experience feels polished. We hope to combine our own internal tests and conclusions with the broader public through our Steam demo to help process the final player experience and understand player expectations.
Following our time with the demo at LGF, we’ll be keeping close tabs on Showrunners as the public demo becomes available. The demo will feature in the Gamer Social Club Demo Disc, our monthly editorial article covering the hottest new demos.
Showrunners will launch on to PC (Steam) at a TBC date, you can wishlist now. Thanks to the developers, Mothlight Studio for their time for this interview. If you would like to join any playtests and the Showrunners community, be sure to join the official Discord.
Gamer Social Club at London Games Festival
For more of our London Games Festival coverage, be sure to check out the following:
