Speed and Scarlet Steel: An Interview with Blargis
All images are from Bloodthief by Blargis
About a year ago, when I committed myself to learning how to make video games, I decided to watch at least one tutorial or dev diary every day. This ritual has kept me inspired, taught me little tricks, and helped me see the painstaking process in a different light.
Blender is still really hard, though.
Deep down the rabbit hole of developer YouTube you’ll quickly discover not all devlogs are created equal–but in my opinion, Blargis (the subject of today’s interview), is one of the current kings of the medium.
I want to thank him for taking time away from the launch of his new demo to answer a few questions about his project, Bloodthief, and what he finds so satisfying about chronicling his adventures in Godot on YouTube.
For readers discovering your work for the first time, who are you and how would you describe Bloodthief?
I'm Blargis, I'm an indie dev working on Bloodthief. I'd describe it as an ultra-fast, first person, melee focused speedrunning game.
What game or moment made you interested in becoming a game dev?
I've been a gamer my whole life so it has always interested me. I think the game that really made me want to try out game dev was Hotline Miami. It just was such a memorable, unique experience. The fact that it was made by two people was really inspiring for me and got me to pick up Unity and give it a try.
Why did you choose to build Bloodthief in Godot?
I'd dabbled a tiny bit in Godot prior to Bloodthief but never did anything serious. I was feeling kinda tired with Unity being so heavyweight and Godot just seemed so simple and easy by comparison. Godot 4.0 just came out and it was looking really awesome so I kinda just chose to use it purely because it sounded fun to learn. Now I'm a huge fan of Godot so this is feeling like it will be my tool of choice for all my future projects :)
You’ve compared your levels to skate parks. What is the first step you take when designing a new level?
My process has changed over the course of development. But lately I've been starting with a mechanic I want to focus on or some new insight I want to teach the player. Then I just try to make scenarios that teach that mechanic or make that insight happen for the player. Usually this involves me blocking out a ton of different scenarios and then I'll pick a few of them and try to tie them together in a level. I'll then show my friends and iterate! Once the gameplay is proven to be pretty good I'll start adding in details and making it look good.
Does Bloodthief have a story or lore?
I have only hashed out high level aspects of the story at this point. An ancient evil is overtaking the game's world. Your character goes on a journey through locations across the lands to vanquish this evil.
Can you explain your philosophy on what separates a glitch, shortcut, or bug that enhances the game versus something you need to fix?
For glitches: To me a glitch is fun and maybe worth keeping if it is rewarding, consistent and not overpowered. I guess I just evaluate these on a case by case basis but I try not to have a closed mind about anything the players find.
For skips / shortcuts: A big part of Bloodthief's gameplay is finding shortcuts. So it feels wrong to remove a player-discovered shortcut just because I didn't explicitly design that shortcut. So most player discovered shortcuts I'll keep unless:
1. It is trivial to find and pull off and makes the rest of the level obsolete so it just makes the level boring.
2. It can be accidentally found and it is immersion breaking (i.e. out of bounds). I'm fine with out of bounds shortcuts as long as it is difficult to stumble upon accidentally whilst playing the level normally.
What is the craziest trick or skip a speedrunner has discovered so far?
A very long time ago I accidentally added a crossbow way up in the sky in one of the levels. When players discovered it I just left it in because I thought it was funny. Well now a speedrunner has figured out a way to get to that crossbow and use it to their advantage to get a WR run. It's a crazy run.
At this point, how good are you at Bloodthief?
I'm good, but I don't think I'm even in the top 500 in any of the level leaderboards any more. It's pretty crazy what the skill ceiling has become.
I watch a lot of dev diaries and you make some of the best. What makes a good dev diary? What are some things to avoid?
I see a lot of people with amazing devlogs that do it way differently from me so I don't want to preach too much here - but I guess my 2 cents would be to be authentic and not be afraid of sounding dumb.
As for what to avoid: I always try to avoid sounding like I think I've found the singular answer or the source of truth to anything.
What purpose do dev diaries serve for you beyond just marketing?
I'm a pretty sentimental person and I love having this portion of my life so well documented. It's going to be really fun to look back on one day. Plus it's a great way for me to show my family and friends what I'm doing.
What is a book, movie, video game, or album you feel everyone should experience?
Book: Hyperion
Movie: The Matrix
Video Game: Quake
Album: In Rainbows, Radiohead
I want to thank Blargis again.
Follow him on X and YouTube and don’t forget to try the new Bloodthief demo (and wishlist it) on Steam. Links to all these things can be found right here:
https://www.youtube.com/@Blargis3d
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2533600/Bloodthief/
Are you working on a small or strange project and ready to talk about it? Reach out on our contact page, we’d love to hear from you!