A tale of fun, co-operation and betrayal in Bramblelash.
Bramblelash
Genre: Party
Platform: PC
Release Date: April 2016
Website | Press Site | Trailer
Form connections and co-operate to destroy your enemies in Bramblelash. Then, if you want, betray your friends and form new alliances for the win.
Created during a 48-hour game jam, Bramblelash is a party game where players take control of enchanted plant sprites and work together to drive slimey invaders from their forest. Players do so by forming a natural tether - a lash - and coordinate to destroy their enemies by clotheslining them.
The concept lends itself to an engaging party game, and plenty of gamers agree. Bramblelash was quickly greenlit on Steam, and the game is expected to be out in April this year. We have a chat with developers ByteSprite to find out more about what we can expect.
Q. What makes Bramblelash special in the party game genre?
BrambleLash is a game about connection, co-operation and betrayal. The entire game revolves around players' ability to form a tether between each other, and coordinate to use it to destroy their enemies.
What makes BrambleLash special is that success entirely hinges on the player's ability to work together with a partner. It also features a dynamic team swapping system that allows players to trade partners and work against each other when playing with more than two people.
Q. What are your goals when designing Bramblelash’s play experience?
We wished to create a game that forged connections and encouraged communication between players both in-game and out. We had seen very few games in the multiplayer space that actually required co-operation for success; most times players work toward the same goal, but one can contribute far more than the others.
Our goal is to create an experience that fosters bonds between players, while allowing them to be broken apart by betrayal, creating those kinds of "Oh Snap!" moments that we love in multiplayer gaming.
Q. Why make it multiplayer only?
There will in fact be options for playing single player in Adventure mode in the final release; we're busy working on them at the moment!
That said, yes, the game is designed as a multiplayer experience at its core. This relates back to our reason for creating it in the first place; to create connections and encourage communication and social interaction. As such, it is very suited to local, party based play.
We also wanted to create a game that can be played between more hardcore gamers and their less gaming focused friends or family, allowing people of a range of different levels of skill to help each other out and feel like they are all always contributing.
Q. Any features in the game that make it easy for Let’s Players, bloggers or streamers to showcase the game?
The final version of BrambleLash will be able to be played online, which will allow Let's Players, bloggers or streamers to play and connect with friends more easily. We're also looking into ways in which we can allow one player who owns BrambleLash to invite friends to play online without them necessarily having to have purchased the game themselves. This may be as simple as making multiple-copy versions of the game available cheaply, or a more technical solution.
Q. Any parts of the game that shouldn’t be missed?
Getting four friends organised to play a game together (even online) can sometimes be difficult, but it is absolutely worth it in BrambleLash. The ability to swap teams really shines when there are four people involved, with allegiances and rivalries being formed and broken by both betrayal and "accidentally" destroying your teammates. The potential for trolling your friends is very high!
Q. What do you normally look for when deciding to provide information/game codes to social influencers?
We're very happy to talk to anyone who is interested in the game and would like more information. Ultimately, we're first and foremost concerned with their enthusiasm in both BrambleLash itself and co-operative, multiplayer and party games. While numbers such as follower counts and engagement is important, we're mostly interested in an audience who will genuinely enjoy and get excited about the game. In a sense, quality over quantity.
Q. What is your policy on Youtubers/Streamers monetising videos of their playthroughs of your game?
Go wild! Seriously, we're not going to police how people film and display playthroughs of our game. If they can make money from it, that's great :) You can find a bunch of information and media to start you off in our presskit.
Q. Are there any community members/fans or content you would like to give a shoutout to?
We got greenlit on Steam Greenlight recently, so a massive thanks to everyone who voted and shared. Also, we recently demoed at PAX Australia and are really grateful to everyone who stopped by and gave BrambleLash a spin. Player feedback is so important to us and has dictated the entire game's design, so we're always happy to hear it (positive or negative!).
Q. Anything else you’d like to share about your game?
All things going well, BrambleLash should be out around the end of April 2016, for PC, Mac and Linux (plus more platforms to be confirmed!). As I mentioned before, we're always really interested in what people have to say about the game, so drop us a tweet at @bytespritegames or an email at [email protected].
