The demo for Rightfully, Beary Arms loads up with a cute jumpsuit-clad teddy bear teleporting into a space station. Beary then runs up to this dapper Fox, Paul Stapleton, who as he is introducing the demo says ‘Don’t mind the bugs… the exterminator is on the way.’ That moment… right there… is when I was sold on this game.
While rogue-lites aren’t usually my first pick, I knew I was going to enjoy the humor in this game, especially when Beary picked up a gun that was bigger than his head.
My first brush with this game had been the demo. It had definitely hooked my interest and so I looked into it. That was when I began to notice the unique strategic elements the team was building. Rightfully, Beary Arms, I was delighted to find, was a bullet hell rogue-lite where you could control not only how you boosted your run, but also how the enemy upgraded. This level of control is something I find really exciting and wanted to learn more about.
Fortunately, I got the chance to talk to Christopher Bischke (art, design, development) and Michael Mudie (design, development), the dynamic duo behind Rightfully, Beary Arms. And let me tell you, I was extremely pumped to find that there is a lot more to Beary than I had even anticipated.
Developer responses have been edited for length and clarity.
What is Rightfully, Beary Arms?
Chris: Rightfully, Beary Arms is an action, bullet hell, shoot-em-up rogue-lite. I think we get compared a lot to games like Gungeon or Nuclear Throne with our ‘gunplay.’ However, we put more emphasis on the planning and meta progression, compared to other bullet hells. During the game, you choose which dungeons you want to crawl through. You can also have a peek and influence over the potential resources you can collect from those dungeons.
Additionally, we have different upgrade systems the player can experiment with. Some reset on death, while other systems persist from run to run so that you don’t feel like you’re completely starting over every single time.
Mike: Yeah, that’s like the bulk of it. You will see inspiration from all sorts of games in the genre, like FTL and Hades. But Rightfully, Beary Arms has our own creative spin and some different, unique elements.
The most striking thing about Rightfully, Beary Arms is that the player can control how the gameplay progresses. Is that where you wanted to be unique?
Chris: I think that was part of the early conversations that Mike and I had. We created a list of games, game systems, strategies, and choices that we really enjoyed. As we designed Rightfully, Beary Arms, we tried to include those elements like incorporating choice in how to upgrade the enemy as the game progresses. Which then influences your strategy and the things that you want to pick up.
We really wanted players to have to think through their game a little bit more, while still keeping our bullet hell fun. We didn’t want Rightfully, Beary Arms to be about a mindless grind.
Considering that Rightfully, Beary Arms is an aggressive game, why did you choose to go with a cozy art style?
Chris: I think we just like cute things and some level of absurdist humor. So why not have this cute and adorable but deadly bear run around? We have a lot of that type of humor in the game and it was also very appealing, visually.
The fun part is that it isn’t just cozy. There are a lot of retro elements in the art, with computers and locations. What led you to that aesthetic?
Chris: For the Space Dungeons, we pulled a lot from Cold War propaganda and technology from that era. You see, behind Beary, there is a kid that’s growing up and using their teddy bear to explore different ways to get over certain things in their lives. We wanted to run that in parallel with scenarios that kids experience. Like dealing with the fear stemming from topics that parents talk about, that kids may not understand. For Americans at least, the Cold War was one of those things. It just so happens that that period had some really cool designs.
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Wow. There was no hint of that storyline in the Rightfully, Beary Arms demo. It puts a whole new spin on the humor that you are embracing. I guess I assumed the story would be more straightforward, like that of an adventurer.
Chris: Yeah, we’re going to try to attempt to release the story with the 1.0 release. I’m not even entirely sure if we’re going to tackle it for early access. We may hint at it a little bit but we don’t want to spoil the narrative. So players will get the full story when they get the full game.
What, according to you, is the coolest part of the game? Something the players should look forward to?
Mike: This may not be the exact answer to the question, but the changes, additions, and growth from the demo to what you’re going to see in Early Access. The demo is very space focused, inspired by the Cold War and the Space Race. In EA, there will be more dungeons with different themes, some of which were hinted at in the demo but did not really show up. Like an Arcade and the Docks. We have more in the pipeline, with different enemies, weapons, and other details. They represent topics that would have impacted children in this time period (the 70s, 80s, and 90s) and caused excitement or anxiety.
What was your approach to designing and generating the game dungeons?
Chris: Each individual room is partly handcrafted with layout and props. Mike’s really good at dressing up the rooms to make them feel alive. Then we think of different scenarios to decide where enemies should spawn. But then, we also have a mixture of random spawn points for enemies and assets. When the dungeon is created, it spawns the rooms at random and adds a number of random enemy and prop spawn points to make each dungeon unique. We do place certain constraints on the overall shape of the dungeon to match the theme. For instance, satellites are longer and narrower. Whereas the docks and arcades sprawl a little bit more.
Mike: We also have to constrain it to create a believable setup from the different rooms of the theme. For the arcade, there are rooms for arcade cabinets, pool tables, bowling alleys, etc. Since we don’t just want a dungeon of one bowling alley room after another, we create constraints on how they spawn. So that the resultant dungeon is laid out in a way that might slightly resemble a recognizable Bowling Alley/Arcade.
The other aspect of it is that we have a list of different kinds of theme ideas. Of things that were popular with kinds from the 70s-90s. We have only implemented a couple of them. Not all of them are going to translate well into dungeon setups. That is something we are still working out. As early access progresses, we will see what works and add more themes.
Chris: We have also been trying to add a difficulty curve/quirk, a gameplay layer for each theme. For instance, with the docks, you can fall off the dock into the water. As a result, you have to watch where you dash and move. This wasn’t part of the demo but will be in Early Access.
What are the enemy factions going to look like?
Chris: Since this is from a child’s perspective, we just tried to categorize things as a child would. We have 3 active factions at the moment: Animals, Mechs, and Insects. Each faction has its own strengths and weaknesses. The Animals are the all-rounders, whereas the insects are weaker in terms of health, but they move a lot and there are a lot more of them. The Mechs tend to be slower but are tanks.
Mike: The enemies follow a similar process to the dungeons, of being relevant to the era. After which we use puns or wordplay to help with design. We try to replicate how a child might interpret something in a literal sense, versus what their parents might have actually said. Then we just work on it to see if we can do anything with them and to see what faction they could fit into. Unfortunately, they really need to know the story to understand the context.
Chris: My favorite thing to do right now is watch players as they come across this literal element. Within the insect dungeons, one of the bosses is a yellow jacket. But in our game, it isn’t a wasp, it’s a raincoat, a literal yellow jacket. They go from fighting hordes of actual insects to facing a jacket. It’s hilarious to catch the moment when they realize what is happening.
With the strategic elements of this game, what is going to persist and what will reset between runs?
Chris: Any weapons you collect persist, which I think is pretty unique for bullet hells. But weapon upgrades will clear. The thought behind that was to let players experiment with weapon upgrades and try different builds when the game resets to find the ideal build.
Then we have two game upgrade systems. ‘Runtimes’ reset at death but tend to alter systems pretty drastically in favor of the player during their run. To counter that, we have a system called Calamities, which upgrades enemies. As you beat Bosses, you will stack calamities. But you can choose and adjust how the difficulty scales to match your play style.
Finally, there is the permanent upgrade system for Beary. There are small progressive changes that you can make to increase his health, movement speed, reload speed, etc. It makes the reset easier since there is an overall sense of progression for the player. You aren’t always restarting from scratch.
Why and how did you choose to come up with this system of upgrades? What was the inspiration, since this is your main differentiator, right?
Mike: If you look at our really early builds, the systems were a lot more literal and explicit. Upgrades were direct boosts to damage, accuracy, etc. It is through playtesting and feedback that we evolved to this version today. I don’t think we set out to create this specifically.
Chris: Inspiration from other games did get mixed in. But yeah, to Mike’s point, playtesting and player feedback have really evolved how we look at these. Mike and I are traditionally software engineers. Our strength is listening to customer feedback and then improving on the software we build for them. So we took that over to designing a game and considered what the players were thinking and their frustrations.
Since this can be very complex and players can make all kinds of random choices, how do you go about balancing the gameplay? What were the challenges?
Chris: It’s been interesting. We’ve definitely had broken builds in Rightfully, Beary Arms and we might find more in Early Access. If there’s something that’s broken in a good way, where players are having fun with it, we’ll try to find a way to, gate it. Make it something that the player can work towards and achieve. We do not want to minimize the fun.
The systems that we have are easier to balance. If there is something that’s broken, we can put it in the temporary system so that it gets erased when the player dies. Even if the player wants to reuse it, there is no guarantee they will find it again. So we have a lot of different levers to play with that allow us to cater to different play styles.
Mike: With new additions, it’s all about testing. When we add that mechanic/asset, we assign initial values to it based on what feels appropriate. Then based on how it performs in play testing we adjust it.
When you take Rightfully, Beary Arms to conventions and expos, do you look for anything specific with how gamers interact with the game? Is there an ideal run you hope for?
Chris: When I design, I don’t do so with an ideal run in mind. I want players to be able to experiment and explore. I guess that’s the ideal run. I know what I like to play, which is obviously in the game, but I also want to see what works for others so that we can build and adjust to their play styles. When we’re at conferences, it’s gonna sound super cheesy, I just want to see people have fun. I always look to see if the players will catch the jokes and easter eggs that we put in.
Talking about these Easter Eggs, how did you come up with the fun ideas for the more fantasy, silly guns? Especially since I now know the serious inspiration for the realistic weaponry.
Chris: Mike and I just brainstorm and be kind of dumb and silly and layer things on top of each other. Some of it even comes from things I imagined as a child and it’s amazing to bring that to life now.
Mike: Yeah, like with the enemy names and dungeon themes we start with puns and wordplay. But sometimes it’s as simple as: what are some things that have the word gun in the name but aren’t actually guns? There is a big list of them. Obvious stuff like squirt guns and glue guns. But there is also a Beef jerky gun. Whether that will make it into the game, I don’t know. But it doesn’t even need to have the word gun in it. It could just be something that looks vaguely like a gun. Then it’s just about trying it out and seeing if it is fun. The demo had about 20 guns but our list far exceeds that. There will be all sorts of crazy guns that will pop up in Early Access.
Chris: Sometimes the designs come from an achievement name we have in mind. Those guns come into existence just because we want to crack that joke when the enemy dies.
Well… I am excited! Where are you with the development of the game and Early Access?
Chris: Rightfully, Beary Arms is available as Early Access on Steam. We are currently polishing it up, fixing bugs, and doing our final playtests. We really hope we get a lot of feedback from the community.
We will be developing and releasing new content all through Early Access. But we will also work on content that will use player feedback but only be available with version 1.0. Right now, we can’t make promises about release, but the plan is to have Rightfully, Beary Arms in Early Access for about a year. We think that’s enough time, but you know, we’ll see how it goes based on what players say.
Do join the Early Access for Rightfully, Beary Arms and share your feedback with Chris and Mike at Daylight Basement Studios. You can find other updates from them on their website, YouTube, Discord, and Reddit.
