The Plague Doctor of Pixels: An Interview with Bard
As much as Twitter has turned into a landfill in recent years (a bigger landfill than it already was, at least), it’s still my favorite place to find unique independent projects–many of which are being built by just one or two people. I discovered Bard early in my own quest to understand how to make video games. He’s working on a truly ambitious Game Boy title that deserves your attention named Nunya. I’d like to thank him endlessly for his time answering my questions and for being the first interview for Tactical Reload.
How would you describe Nunya to someone discovering it for the first time?
Well Nunya is my first solo project, so basically it’s just me learning how to do a lot of new stuff. The game started as an entry for the GBCompo2023, the first game jam I’ve joined by myself. I had been playing around with GB Studio for a few months and decided to join.
The jam’s theme was “You are the monster” so I spent a weekend looking at my mockups and drawings I posted on Twitter looking for ideas. That’s when I saw a drawing I made of 3 nuns with guns. I chose one of them and wrote down the idea of a little nun that turns into a monster, to match the jam’s theme, and that’s how Nunya was born.
After the jam, I’ve been adding and removing content, so the new demo will include a little bit of everything you’ll find in the final game.
Do you remember the game or the moment that made you feel like you wanted to make video games?
The moment I discovered GB Studio! It made me realize I didn’t need to learn how to code to make a videogame and that was a great feeling haha. I previously made art for a couple of games for game jams I joined with friends, but I participated only as an artist on those projects. When I saw the first GB Studio tutorial I realized that I now could make a game by myself, and that’s how I started learning how to use it.
What is your creative background? Did you have any development experience before starting Nunya?
I’ve made pixel art as a hobby since 2019, but it wasn’t until 2021 that I joined my first game jam with a friend. That was my first experience with the game development world. That was also my first time making backgrounds, sprites, tile sets, animations, and character designs for a little game. I’ve joined a couple of game jams as an artist since but it wasn’t until 2023 that I started working on a project as both the artist and the developer. I make all my game assets except for the sound effects (shout out to @Cofebbat for the sfx packs) and the game font (shout out to @NotJamGames for his amazing font packs!).
Why did you decide to use GB Studio as your engine?
I do pixel art and gamedev as a hobby, so I only do it in my free time, which was (and still is) very limited. If I wanted to get into programming games, I would need something that wouldn’t take much time to learn. When I learned about this cool drag and drop retro game creator that could make games for the Game Boy I was thrilled. My own game on an actual Game Boy? I had to try it! I started watching Robert Doman’s and Pixel Pete tutorials, and that’s how I got started. I met a lot of people from the homebrew community that have been so kind and learned lots from them.
All engines have limitations, but GB Studio is a unique case because it’s designed to imitate the quirks of original Game Boy hardware. What’s the most interesting problem solving you’ve had to do so far?
When I decided to use a Doom inspired UI for my game, I had to sacrifice verticality on my level design. That’s because if I wanted to have such a detailed UI, with my character’s face, potions, HP bar etc, it would require me to draw it as part of the level scenes’ background png, and use the parallax feature to keep that section of the background always on screen while the rest of the level moves and such. Sure, I could use a couple of heart and potion icons on one corner of the screen, just like many games do, but I really wanted the UI to be as detailed as it is right now. The UI really gave the game a lot of personality and I wanted to keep that, so now my level design is limited to having only horizontal levels, if I make a level that is more than 144pixels tall, the parallax tricks I’m using for the UI stops working!
This is what my backgrounds look like. The UI is not an overlay, but part of the background.
How has your vision for this game evolved since you started it? Have you been fighting scope creep?
Oh the original vision of the game’s changed a LOT since the original entry. Not having a deadline really gave me the freedom of taking my time with this project. I’ve been adding a lot of stuff since I’ve now learned how to do more things and learned how to use plugins to get GB Studio to the next level. I’m using an already outdated version of the software but it’s still able to do a lot of fancy stuff with the help of plugins like Tilesewap and Platformer Plus.
The biggest features I added since the first demos are:
Colors. The original entry only had 4 colors, I decided to use all the potential that the color mode provides and made a colorful selection of palettes for the game.
Maps.
Boss HP bars.
More places to visit in town.
Side quests and mini bosses.
Last week, I paused to think what I want to include in the demo and what I want to save for the final version, so I started to cut content and polish what’s left for the demo. I want to release the new demo very soon, and seeing friends from the homebrew community releasing demos and starting Kickstarter campaigns really makes me want to finally put my game out there for people to play it!
Before and After
Can you describe the feeling of seeing your game actually running on a physical Game Boy for the first time?
Seeing my game for the first time on an actual Game Boy Color console was a dream come true. I’ve been using emulators to playtest the game since the beginning of the project, and nothing compares to seeing my sprites on the Game Boy screen now that I was finally able to buy a console.
Are you already planning your next project? Any hints?
I’m a big fan of card games so I’d love to try making a card game for the Game Boy next, I know that’s kind of an ambitious thing so I prefer to focus on finishing Nunya first. I would also love to join a project just as a pixel artist this time, so I’ll be looking for game jams to join in 2025!
Last question, what is a book, movie, video game, or album you think everyone should experience?
I’d recommend any game by Vanillaware, especially Dragon’s Crown, praying for a PC port in the future!
I’d recommend Daft Punk’s album, Discovery, and their animated movie Interstella 5555.
And everyone should watch The Wolfman (2010), amazing movie, and it has the best double jump scare of all time!
And where should people follow you for updates on your game?
Right now I’m mostly active on BlueSky, where I post updates very often: https://bsky.app/profile/bardpixel.bsky.social
I would like to thank Bard again for his time and generosity.
Are you a developer or artist working on a small or strange project? Reach out on our contact page, I would love to talk to you!