BoxBoy! director talks about how the game came about, placeholder visuals became the final visuals
BoxBoy! director Yasuhiro Mukae has elaborated on the game’s origins.
Speaking with Siliconera, Mukae said:
First off, let me thank you for mentioning some of HAL Laboratory’s past titles. Regarding BOXBOY!’s design process, that got its start when the company began to field new ideas for games and I submitted the BOXBOY! design proposal I had come up with earlier.
After that, a few staffers that saw the potential in the design created a prototype game we could play within the company.
It was officially established and launched as a project once we submitted the project’s design document and proposal as a set. That marked the beginning of BOXBOY!’s development.
Mukae also discussed how the idea for BoxBoy! evolved into a full game. In doing so, he revealed that its placeholder visuals became the final visuals after he “drew in the design document and realized that they really had an impact, a uniqueness that differentiated it from other games.”
There’s a neat story about BOXBOY!’s visual look. To be honest, BOXBOY!’s look hasn’t changed much at all between the early stages, when I was wrapping up the design document, and the final product. However, actually getting to that final visual look was a long trial-and-error process.
Should we add some kind of color to Qbby? Do we need to draw backgrounds for the stages? Should we make the visuals more flamboyant?
I fumbled around at the start of development, exploring the possibilities for assorted forms of visual expression.The reason I did that was because the Qbby I drew in the design proposal, as well as the visual feel of the stages and other game-world aspects, were meant to be placeholders for getting BOXBOY!’s game-play aspects across.
But as we went on with BOXBOY! development, I looked back at the visuals I drew in the design document and realized that they really had an impact, a uniqueness that differentiated it from other games. So the placeholder visuals wound up becoming the final visuals.
By the way, one concept we had as I was messing around with visual expressions was the idea of you pairing up with Kirby.
Mukae previously stated that the concept for BoxBoy! “began with me trying to come up with a project featuring NES or Game Boy-style retro gameplay.” The project’s plan was submitted in July 2011, but it wasn’t until 2013 that it was submitted as a product proposal.
