Straight from the Source: Bishop Games (Light Fall)

This interview was conducted during Tokyo Game Show 2017.

Special thanks to Bri Bri from Japanese Nintendo who helped with the transcription. Please give him some love on Twitter!

The interview was conducted with David Dion-Paquet, who co-founded Bishop Games.

PushDustIn: This is PushDustIn, Brando, and David so here you are, you’re showing off Light Fall for Nintendo Switch.

David Dion-Paquet: Yes we are, Light Fall is coming out to the Switch in March 2018.

PushDustIn: And what’s the main appeal for the game?

David Dion-Paquet: So Light Fall is a platformer in which you have your own platform. So you control your character and the platform and it allows us as creators to create different level designs because the distance between the platforms doesn’t necessarily have to be the same which is often the case with platformers. So since you place your own platform by yourself in an intuitive way and then we can do more. It really shows when you play the game.

Brando: I just played the demo completely blind so once I got the hang of the platform placing, I could see how this could be open to a lot of creativity and speed-running and stuff like that.

David Dion-Paquet: Yeah, exactly, so you made it through the first two levels and on the third we are building upon what you already learned before so in the third level there is a boat in there and you can move the block around and place it on the engine of the boat and you can control the boat and the character so the block allows you to do more than place platforms here and there and you can interact with the environment as well.

PushDustIn: And are you planning for an eShop release?

David Dion-Paquet: Yeah, eShop release and as well the game will be on the other consoles and on Steam.

PushDustIn: Do you have a price-point decided or not yet?

David Dion-Paquet: Yeah, the game will be $15 U.S. or local equivalent.

PushDustIn: How long has the game been in development for?

David Dion-Paquet: This game has been in development since 2014. Back then we were not doing it full-time, we were working on the side. And over time we’ve been building up and up and more content for the game and eventually we got funding and we hired people, so we are now a team of five people.

PushDustIn: What’s the main story behind the game?

David Dion-Paquet: So I can’t say all that much without spoiling it for everybody but you spawn in this world that is in permanent darkness, that’s how things are in this world and you don’t remember who you are and you have to go to the game and figure out who you are and what’s the problem with the world.

PushDustIn: So you plan for release in March, have you already your next project lined-up?

David Dion-Paquet: Yeah, we’re already thinking about our next project but we are still too early.

PushDustIn: So Light Fall has Japanese localization so are you planning for Japan, America, European release?

David Dion-Paquet: Yeah, we are going worldwide for March and in some regions, we also have voiceovers that are localized so Japanese voiceovers, French and English.

Brando: What was your role in the project?

David Dion-Paquet: In the beginning, I was the programmer and over time I transitioned more into the management side.

PushDustIn: Are there any features of the Switch that are particularly interesting to you?

David Dion-Paquet: Well the portability, that’s the most interesting part as [Light Fall] a fairly short game actually so people that don’t have that much time to put inside a game, not everybody has two hours to put into a game, and since it’s a short experience; having a portable device you can play the game on makes it perfect for Light Fall.