KOTOMASHO – Interview

Developer: WalGallen
Release: ~Q1 2024
Genre: Action RPG / Adventure
Art Style: Pixel
Social links: Website / Twitter / Discord / Steam / Kickstarter

A lot of indie games now are inspired of classic games of old, where they try to do them justice while making some changes to the recipe that keeps things interesting. One such game is KOTOMASHO, developed by Mexican indie dev and artist WalGallen and currently on Kickstarter. So we got in touch with him to tell us more about this project! Take a look!

1. What inspired you to start working on KOTOMASHO?

I was working on another game at the time, a way bigger one that I’m still releasing someday, but I got a little burnt out and wanted to make a small game that was top-down perspective for a change. This desire was specially amplified since I had recently played the Gameboy Color Zelda games.

The story was inspired mostly by anime. More specifically on magical girl ones like Card Captor Sakura and Sailor Moon, but, I would say that the original idea came because I was watching tons of VR Chat streams on Twitch at the time.

So, after thinking it over for a while I decided to participate in a Game Jam for the very first time and the Prologue of KOTOMASHO was the result.

2. Can you tell me a bit more about the story of the game and the world behind it?

The story is about this Japanese NEET (acronym for Not in Education, Employment, or Training) guy called Genji, who one night obtains magical girl powers from a crystal that his sister sent him as a present. After being transported to the realm of dreams he meets Yumeko, a talking cat who previously was the owner of those powers. Yumeko was trapped in the realm of dreams for 2 years separated from her sisters, but now, with the help of Genji’s magical girl persona Miyu, they are exploring the realm of dreams to find Yumeko’s sisters and defeat evil nightmares that are tormenting people’s dreams. There’s much more backstory about the world and what’s happening but I will keep that a secret for now. I’m just gonna say that this game, the previous game I was working on and all the games I will be working on from now on share the same universe and it is one I already have built in my mind.

3. What inspired you to go with a Gameboy aesthetic?

The one game that made me decide 100% on making a game with Gameboy Color aesthetic was The Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening DX. I played that game in late 2021 and I liked it a lot. Although, I’m sure that other Gameboy games like Pokemon probably unconsciously inspired me as well. The Gameboy Color was my first console and Pokemon Yellow was the first video game that made me want to play video games. It was thanks to it that I am here today doing this.

4. Combat and dungeon puzzles are at the core of the game, similar to older Zelda titles. Is the game going to bring a fresh perspective to the genre or will it be more like an homage?

Both, I want the game to have details and cool mechanics inspired on Zelda, like for example a recorder that you can use to play magical songs, just like the Ocarina of Time, stuff like that. At the same time, I want to make a game that is not exactly like Zelda story-wise and gameplay-wise. For example combat in KOTOMASHO is more similar in some ways to Blaster Master, Metal Slug or Contra (kinda) because you don’t use a melee weapon, you shoot magic powers that change depending on which weapon you pick up from enemies or item drops.

Another thing that is different from Zelda is the dungeons, there are two types of dungeons, Procedural and hand-crafted. The hand crafted dungeons are Zelda-like but the procedurally-generated ones are more akin to something like the Binding of Isaac or the Mystery Dungeon games, they change form every time you enter a floor.

Overall, I would say that KOTOMASHO is very Zelda-like but not a Zelda clone and hopefully it is a new experience for both Zelda and non Zelda fans.

5. You have currently a Kickstarter campaign running. Can you let us know a bit about it, as well as the stretch goals you have planned out?

The goal of the Kickstarter is to allow me to work on it full time and make a full 10 hour or more game. I want to make a 5 Chapter game each with its own big open area to explore but unfortunately this will take a long time and effort since I’m working on it solo. If the Kickstarter doesn’t reach its goal I am still gonna finish the game but I will have to cut it to only 3 areas since the original idea was to make a short game. On the other hand, if the Kickstarter campaign is successful, I have some stretch goals to make it even bigger! The game has the potential to be a 12 chapter game with animated cutscenes, multiple languages, even the mandatory beach episode that is in almost every anime. Also a dream of mine is to bring my games to consoles, specially Nintendo ones since those were the games that I grew up with and I feel like the Nintendo Switch would be the perfect home for KOTOMASHO, so, I am very hopeful that we reach those stretch goals.

6. Where could people find you in order to learn more about KOTOMASHO and keep up with future updates?

You can find me on Twitter or on my Discord server for more updates on KOTOMASHO, those are two places that I check the most but if you are interested I also make fanart that I post on Insta, Youtube, Tumblr, TikTok, etc.

7. What is the current status of the game? Do you expect to release it soon?

Right now the game only has the prologue and first chapter ready. I will start working on the second area later this month but first, I want to fix some bugs that have been popping out now that tons of people are playing. Unfortunately the game will not release very soon but hopefully it’ll be out by Q1 of next year.