Blue Skies and Bloodthirsty Bulldozers: The MotorSlice Interview
All images are from MotorSlice by Regular Studio
I watch every press conference, showcase, and direct the industry throws at me (I’d be doing this even if I wasn’t running a video game website). It can be time consuming–but there are worse things to be addicted to than trailers.
Of course, when you see 50, 100, or 200 WORLD PREMIERES in the span of a weekend they sometimes have the tendency to blend together. From the first seconds of its debut showing, with its white sand and sagging skyscrapers, MotorSlice was never in danger of getting lost in the shuffle. (I also once wrote a whole novel about pretty girls with chainsaws, so I guess you could say I’m the target audience).
I reached out to Regular Studio and they were kind enough to answer a few of my questions about their upcoming SLICE of life adventure.
For readers discovering your work for the first time, who are you and how would you describe MotorSlice?
I'm known as Luqui, the creator of the brutalist parkour game MotorSlice.
A cute chainsaw girl doing parkour in a megastructure to kill construction equipment.
Do you remember a game or moment that made you want to become a game dev?
When I played FEZ for the first time, I realized that I could do it too. Fantastic game, BTW.
I’ve never seen a game that looks like MotorSlice. What were the inspirations for its aesthetic and color palette?
I wouldn't say I have a specific inspiration for the aesthetics. Maybe Mirror's Edge, but I never tried to replicate Mirror's Edge aesthetics... But I consume a lot of games and animations, and at one point, the world of MotorSlice started being created in my mind, way before I even started development. Kind of a cheesy thing to say, but it is the truth haha.
But I wanted to give that PS2 and early PS3 aesthetic, even some PSP vibes, you know? Something that would have come out around the year 2004 or 2005. A strong cyan sky was always on my mind, and a bright sun that makes the sand almost white. Also, the pixelated texture to give that retro vibe.
From there, it was an experimentation process while creating the main concepts of the game. The iconic yellow construction equipment machinery takes up a huge part of the aesthetics. A world bathed in teal, cyan, orange, gray and white.
Parkour seems to be the main mode of movement in your game. How intense has the animation process been?
It was hard. Way bigger than I first anticipated. Classic indie mistake haha. You start working on something, and then you realize that it needs more animations, like smaller movements, transitioning, variations, and the list goes on. Since the appeal of the game is a hand crafted experience, there are no shortcuts, and I must animate everything. An example is the edge climbing system, where the character walks on a wall crack. This needed 10x more animations than I previously anticipated, and it took 10x more time to create.
And I'm always tweaking stuff to improve the game feeling, so it is a constant challenge.
Why did you choose a chainsaw as P’s primary weapon?
Because of the game’s main inspiration, Prince of Persia. In that franchise, the Prince has the Dagger of Time, which makes a lot of sense for the story, theme, and gameplay. So I knew I would need an iconic weapon as well, also for the story, theme, and gameplay.
After I decided to go with the megastructure setting and fighting heavy machinery, a chainsaw was a straightforward process.
I have a design principle to use one thing for many things, so I thought that using the chainsaw as part of the move set would be nice and add some flavor to the game, since she uses the chainsaw to cut machinery, the MotorSlice mechanic was born and everything felt right. Yes, the name of the game came from this.
In terms of story, it feels just right that a machine hunter (Slicer) has a chainsaw as a weapon. It just fits.
In other words, chainsaws are cool.
The game takes place in a Brutalist megastructure, what tricks are you using to insert variety into the concrete corridors?
There's multiple ways to add variety. I use brutalism as a fiction, not just an aesthetic. It's a world where everything has turned into concrete (Beton), so this opens up a lot of variety for the themes of levels. What if there's a city, or a canal, where everything is made of concrete? And the list goes on. Of course, consistency is the main point here, that's why she is physically traversing the world, without any cuts during her journey. It's pretty cool and I hope people will get immersed in this very unique world.
What are some design challenges you’ve encountered as a side effect of your enemies being (sometimes massive) construction equipment?
Yeah, the bosses are...challenging, haha. There's A LOT going on during a boss fight. It's hard to keep things in control sometimes, and there are some technical limitations to it. Every mechanic is put to use at the same time.
Besides the technical challenge, the hardest part is to make the fight clean and easy to understand, and that takes a lot of iterations. Also, making these HUGE machine models is...complicated.
My focus was creating a memorable experience from these massive encounters more than anything else. I think you guys will be surprised by the bosses haha.
How does Pizza Hotline’s soundtrack fit into the world you’re creating?
I knew from the beginning the vibes I was going for. I wanted an Ambient DnB/Jungle soundtrack. It was amazing to get my favorite artist of this genre for the game.
The reason for a DnB soundtrack is because one of the core pillars of the project: Contrast. I use contrast to surprise players, but without feeling out of place. You do not expect this kind of soundtrack in this setting, however, because of the atmosphere and aesthetics, it fits perfectly.
Pizza did an amazing job.
You use words like “hardcore” and “brutal” to describe MotorSlice in its press kit and Steam page–how difficult is this game going to be?
The game is not that hard, but it’s definitely not on the easy side. But because of the "one hit kill" rule, some people might get frustrated, so it's important to get expectations right.
The reason for this is because of the game’s premise, it’s not just because I want that. Chainsaws are a heavy weapon, it doesn't feel right to have sponge enemies using a chainsaw. Besides that it's a parkour game, a classic combo style combat doesn't fit at all. I wanted something fast, brutal, and fun.
But you have to force some urgency from the player. So I made the enemies aggressive, where you kill easily, but die easily. Go for the kill or die, and keep running. Simple as that.
Of course, for the bosses it is a different thing, because you climb them like in Shadow of the Colossus, and slice them using the MotorSlice mechanic.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to make video games?
Making games is an arduous and frustrating process for the most part. But if you wanna do it, try to have some fun! Think of a way to put what you like in the game, so it is less annoying. I'm not talking just about the bigger picture, like the game genre, but the little things. I added a pseudo dating sim mechanic in MotorSlice because I like Visual Novels. Have some fun and trust your vision!
What is a book, movie, video game, or album you feel everyone should experience?
Girls' Last Tour - both anime and manga. Go for it, you will have a blast.
Thanks to Luqui for chatting with me.
Make sure to follow them on X (@RegularStudio_), Bluesky (@regularstudio.bsky.social), and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@RegularStudio) for development updates.
Most importantly of all, wishlist MotorSlice on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2830030/MOTORSLICE/
Are you working on a game and can’t wait to talk about it? Reach out on our contact page! We’d love to meet you.