Developer Spotlight Series: Behind the Arcade Action of Aluna Rift | The Gamerheads Podcast

The arcade-style game, Aluna Rift, will be releasing on November 27th. We had the opportunity to not only play the game (review coming soon) but also had the chance to interview the developer.

The conversation highlights the passion Ben has for game, from what first pulled him into gaming, to how he thinks through player-centric design. It’s always exciting to hear a developer’s story and learn more about their creative process, and this interview captures both in a really genuine way.

For folks who may not know you yet, tell us a bit about yourself. What got you into gaming in the first place?

Hello, my name is Ben! I’m a Dad, a Husband and a video game developer from England in the UK. Yes, I do drink cups of tea. No, I don’t have bad teeth. I do enjoy moaning about the weather and being overly polite though. I also like to make video games in my spare time.

I’ve been gaming for as long as I can remember and feel very fortunate to have grown up through the evolution of the industry. Really showing my age here, but my first exposure to games was back in the 80’s when my old man bought the family a Commodore 64. My obsession and fascination with video games definitely started then. Both of my parents worked really hard to provide for our family and I was a very lucky child because of that. A few years later we were blessed with an Amiga 64 which was an absolute game changer, arguably the greatest period of gaming for me personally for many reasons.

It wasn’t until much later in life (around 2010) that I actually started to realise it might be kind of cool to actually work in the games industry (I’m still annoyed at myself for not realising this much, much sooner in life!). I got my first break in the industry relatively quickly, working in Player Support at Jagex, going on to work in QA, then Production on RuneScape (I had a lot of really great years at Jagex). It was around 2015 that I started getting the itch to make games of my own, and started following tutorials on how to code and build games in Unity.

Give us the elevator pitch for Aluna Rift. What’s the premise, and what’s the origin story behind the game?

Ugh, I hate wearing the “salesman hat”, I always find it so awkward and forced. It’s probably why I’m so terrible at the marketing side of things! But here goes:

Aluna Rift is a neon-coated space shooter that fuses classic arcade action with modern-twists and a pinch of multiplayer madness. Challenging colossal bosses, bullet-time evasion and random encounters await amidst a storm of cosmic chaos!

The premise of the game is intentionally sparse. I really feel that (especially for a game like this that centres on arcade action and endless replayability) when players can “fill in the blanks” of a story themselves it makes the experience more unique and interesting to each person that plays it. During the game I drop in a minimal amount of vague lore that hints towards some kind of conflict, and how it’s on your shoulders as the hero to save your world. But other than that it's completely open to the player’s imagination and interpretation, which I think is a really powerful tool that’s often under-used, not just in video games.

The truth is I never actually thought about making a game like this before. In fact I’d only ever made a couple of games before this (one “proper” game, and another mini-project during the 2020 Covid Lockdowns that technically counts as a game). Aluna Rift actually started life as part of a job application. For the second phase of the application process I was set a technical challenge, which was literally a one liner; “Re-create Asteroids in Unity”. They said I could spend a few hours, or up to a week on it if I wanted. I had never coded or built anything like that before and was obviously keen to impress, so I spent a good few days on the task, poring over Asteroids reference material to refresh my memory of the original masterpiece. I made sure I added in as much juice and visual polish as I could once I’d locked down the core functionality. I actually posted some footage of the completed challenge to Reddit if you’re interested in what it looked like. I was really pleased with what I managed to put together, and evidently so was the studio I applied to as they offered me a job!

I love making games and was already trying to decide what my next personal project would be. A big part of me was excited at the prospect of taking this tiny technical challenge and seeing how much I could grow it into its own unique spin on a classic. There was something about what I’d made already that felt really fun, and I certainly had fun making it! I was desperate to see if I could develop and launch a game completely on my own, including the Artwork (which was a big thing for me as a non-artist). The first game I made was with a talented Artist friend, so I didn’t have to worry about art then. The second was a very small-scope 2D project that I did the art for (it didn’t turn out too bad to be fair, I think that’s what gave me confidence to do more). So the hurdle of handling all of the art for a game of this scope myself was fairly high! But that’s how this entire project manifested, it really just kept snowballing from very humble origins.

One thing I really love about Aluna Rift is how it blends classic arcade style with modern design. What were some of the challenges of bringing contemporary mechanics into an arcade-style shooter?

Honestly, I didn't really struggle with this. I think my noob-like-naivety probably helped a lot! I just jumped right in and started making things that I thought were fun. I knew first and foremost that I had to veer as far away as possible from it just being a straight clone of Asteroids. I absolutely wanted to retain a strong homage and give fans of the original an experience they could enjoy in my game, but I was really keen to stamp my own gaming tastes and personality on it.

The biggest challenge was certainly balancing. I was very conscious that I didn't want to make an absolutely overwhelming “hardcore gamers only” experience, but I also didn't want it to be a complete walk in the park. Making the game easy to learn, hard to master, and fair along the way was pretty tough!

There were some technical challenges to overcome, particularly when running the game handheld on Switch, but actually nothing too complex. The obvious one is handling tons of bullets and lots of enemies on the screen at the same time. Throwing co-operative play and split-screen battle mode into the mix definitely added to that challenge. Also, implementing control rebinding (the very first time I've ever had to do this as a developer) towards the very end of the development life-cycle was a fun one! Completely my fault for neglecting to do this sooner, I was definitely avoiding it because of its complexity, but I’m really glad I did it in the end. 

Let’s talk about bosses. What kinds of boss encounters can players expect, and do you have a personal favorite?

Ah, that would be giving it away! They'll have to grab a copy of the game and see for themselves 😜 

From the very beginning though when I was designing ideas for how I wanted Aluna Rift to stand out, “screen-filling colossal bosses” was probably one of the very first things I wrote down. I had just spent a bunch of time with Cuphead and Hollow Knight before all of this, so I had a huge craving to include a bunch of challenging Boss fights in my game. I love games like God of War 3 and Shadow of the Colossus as well, so the temptation of having your tiny hero (relatively speaking) overcome insurmountable odds against enormous foes was too great to ignore.

As for my favourite Boss? Dude, I've tested each one about 4 thousand times, I hate* every single one of those motherf***ers! 

*love killing them though 😉

The game has a ton of power-ups to play with. Which ones are your favorites, and were there any challenges in designing or balancing them?

Yeah, Widespan-Blast is a favourite for sure as it can absolutely obliterate a whole suite of enemies like a window-wiper swiping away rain-drops. When you combine that with a Rapid-Fire power-up, oof, forget about it. I actually had to massively nerf Widespan-Blast after a while as it was just so frickin’ powerful! 

I actually had so many more ideas for power-ups that I wanted to add to the game, but you mention balancing there and the addition of each one just grew the difficulty to balance everything exponentially. I had to reign it in to keep the scope down and actually finish the game. But I’m pretty happy with the variety on offer.

There are a few power-ups that I had to make a lot rarer as time went by as it just made everything too easy. I also tactfully reduce the probability of certain power-ups to zero during some boss fights as there are several that would completely break the mechanics of a fight. Little things like that come up during development and throw a bit of a spanner in the works, but it’s all par-for-the-course.

Alongside its arcade feel, Aluna Rift also leans into roguelike progression. Can you walk us through how progression works, and how the endless mode fits into that design?

I genuinely knew very little about Rogeulikes / Roguelites before I started developing Aluna Rift, which was still true by the time it came to designing what turned out to be my own Roguelite progression system. All I knew was that after a player had been defeated in the Standard Game Mode it could often feel quite deflating - especially if they had gotten quite far before being killed. So I wanted to give them something uplifting, followed by a reason to try again. I think I had recently finished playing The Last of Us 2 at the time (which by the way is an absolutely phenomenal game), and I remember being inspired by the “New Game Plus” mode that becomes available on completion, enticing you to play again whilst keeping all of your upgrades and skills. I know that isn’t necessarily a new idea in games, but it was fresh in my mind at the time, so I wanted to lean into that with Aluna Rift. When you’re defeated in Standard Mode, you’ll be rewarded with up-to three (depending on your performance) random Ship Upgrades that you’ll start the next run with.

In addition to that, you are presented with opportunities to upgrade your ship with more player-agency during a run, after each Boss-fight-victory and occasionally at other specific milestones. You’re awarded a certain number of “upgrade-points” as well as “re-rolls” (to refresh the pool of upgrades available). Upgrades cost a varying amount of upgrade-points, and every time you purchase one the pool gets refreshed. There’s a little bit of a metagame here too, as some upgrades can actually be free-of-charge. Do you take the ultra-powerful option for all of your upgrade-points whilst it’s there now, or ignore it in favour of the free-option and risk never seeing that ultra one again?

When it comes to the endless “Survival Mode” however, the Roguelite system works slightly differently. There are no “carry-over” upgrades at all in this game mode, you will always start with a blank slate at the start of a run. This is because Endless mode is for the Hiscore hunters out there and ties into the Global Leaderboards (Steam and Switch have their own platform-specific leaderboards), so it was essential to give everyone a level playing field there. You can still get power-ups during a run, but this also works slightly differently to Standard mode. In Endless mode, upgrades cost your actual Hiscore points. You can choose to retain every single point you earn to preserve your score at the cost of remaining a vanilla vessel, or sacrifice some of those sweet, sweet points to become more powerful and potentially survive longer than you normally would! It’s a risk-reward metagame that I think adds to the experience.

The art direction pops: bright colors, interesting backgrounds, the whole thing is absolutely beautiful on a big screen. What inspired the visual style for the game?

Ah, I’m so pleased to hear that feedback! As I mentioned earlier, I am in no-way an artist, and have some very basic art skills at best. I always had a desire to be good at art growing up, and have dabbled in bits and bobs over the years, but I haven’t been consistent or patient enough with it in order to actually get good. So from the get-go, I had to be sure that whatever game I decided to make alone was going to be one that I could realistically achieve from an artistic point-of-view. The top-down aspect certainly helped, and going with a really abstract style with minimal detail was always going to be the best option in terms of feasibility for me. It was a lot of fun refining the look of the game over time and I spent many hours getting it right, particularly the back-drops - making sure they never (or at least rarely) get in the way of the foreground-action. 

In terms of inspiration, Geometry Wars was a big one. It ticked all the boxes in terms of what I thought I could achieve on my own with the minimal art skills I had (though I think Geometry Wars is stunningly beautiful, far beyond what I’ve achieved with my game). I am under no illusions that the art for the game is ground-breaking or even “good” by an artist's standards, but I’m happy that it’s at least a consistent, coherent art style that people think is quite pleasing on the eye. Just don’t look at the art too close….

When players wrap up a run of Aluna Rift, what do you hope they walk away feeling or thinking?

I’m hoping one of two things will happen. They’ll either feel like they just defied all odds, that they are absolutely god-like in their mastery of video games, that no feat by any other mere mortal on this planet will ever surpass what they just achieved here today. Or they’ll reel off a combination of obscenities and curse words they never knew existed…and then click “Play Again”.

What’s next for you, and where can people follow your work?

With Aluna Rift finally complete (launching November 27th on Steam and Nintendo Switch) I’m already exploring ideas for my next project. I have one particular idea in mind that I think could be a lot of fun. I’m currently in the very early prototyping phase for that one, so watch this space!

I don’t really use Social Media much at all these days but I will occasionally post on Twitter (I still refuse to call it the other dumb name). I am more active on Reddit though to be fair (I do love posting a good Dad joke).

• Twitter: digiggle Games

• Twitter: personal

• Reddit: diggigle / personal

I loved hearing about Ben’s journey, from his earliest memories of getting into gaming to the way he approaches design today. It’s clear that Aluna Rift is both a nostalgic love letter to arcade action and a reflection of the passion he brings to developing that experience.

Thank you, Ben, for taking the time to answer our questions. As stated, Aluna Rift releases on November 27th on Steam and Nintendo Switch.