Burrito Galaxy 65 wraps up a lot of cute, strange, and playful features all into one big burrito. It’s the work of three people: Mushbuh, Magdev, and Kayfaraday. They’ve been working on it for a little over a year, it starting out as a burrito-based roguelike called Burrito Galaxy 64 about a bean commander called Guac, and it was appealing enough to people that it was Greenlit.
More recently, Burrito Galaxy went through a number of big changes, with its art style changing slightly, and whole areas being scrapped for new ones. It seemed to drop its roguelike roots in favor of becoming a more open world adventure. More cute characters have been added, the ability to slide down slopes to get big speed and lots of air, and a hotel sits at the center of the world.
As this is the case, Siliconera caught up with one of the game’s creators, Mushbuh, to talk about what Burrito Galaxy 65 is after these changes. We find out why all of the characters speak with typos, why the playground has been added to the game, and also what Guac’s mission is inside this zany world.
The current build of Burrito Galaxy 65 is noticeably different to the one you had a year ago. Why did you decide to make these fairly big changes?
Mushbuh, designer: We got bored of working on the old version, and decided that it was too short (2-3 hours, but you can speed run it in 8 minutes haha) and not fun enough to sell alone. We started working on this new version in order to be able to fit more cool junk into the game and have more fun working on it.
How would you describe the world of Burrito Galaxy 65? What is there to see? Who lives there? What is it inspired by?
The Burrito Galaxy world is an epic Adventure Time-like world with roguelike elements, always online Ouya connectivity with subtle adult themes of it being post apocalyptic! You’ll be able to explore a full world filled with wacky characters with an open world. Kind of like Dark Souls and Titanfall combined.
Burrito Galaxy takes place in the burrito galaxy, and is full of tiny pocket realms. Each map is kind of tiny and loops forever when you fall of it. We wanted to make each map feel like its own “roomverse” floating in space. The skyboxes for the maps replace what walls would do in other games. The creatures in the game range from real animals like frogs to weird made-up stuff like blobs with arms and legs. Someone told me it reminded them of different Tamagotchi and I thought that was nice of them to say.
I showed the game at MAGFest last week and a lot of people asked me what inspired us. I think that is a weird question because I don’t have an answer that I feel not-gross saying. We just wanted to make something original and not Super Epic Retro Pixel Man Kickstarter: The Chiptune-roguelike on Early access.
Aside from games, I guess hanging out in cool playgrounds and water parks is playing a big part of this. Bike trails and parks and stuff too. We want the game to feel like a cool super playground world. I remember playing around in Google Maps when it came out to look for 3D models of playgrounds and the terrain, but there wasn’t a whole lot.
Who is Guac and what is their position within this world? What are they out to do if anything specific? Is there still a story to follow?
Guac is the main character. They’re a big dumb blue bean-bodied alien that can slide around on slopes (special action power) and slap things (not that hard).
You crash your ship into a hotel breaking a window, and since glass is rare in the future you have to pay this hotel manager billions of coins. Since you don’t have any money you have to do chores and become a hotel employee. But you start to learn that there is probably something strange going on at the hotel, and you could make a ton of money and get fabulous treasures and prizes.
Also each room in the hotel is its own world?? Wow, that’s really neat. Maybe you will find out. Guac cares more about getting the heck out of there as soon as possible without repaying, or maybe not, who KNOWS?!
In the current build, there’s a playground that you can mill around in. How much room do you intend to give players to explore and play freely in this way?
We want it so that anyone could enjoy just jumping around and sliding off things. The reason this first area is a playground is to force players to ride the slide and half pipe, and explore things for fun rather than to advance the game. But you will be able to find secret things as well if you explore, so that
might motivate other people. Not that it won’t be a full game or anything, but what we have been focusing on mainly is making the game fun to play and goof around in.
What other types of play are in the game? The Taquito Tower is mentioned in the demo—will that pop up at some point? Is the dungeon crawling still in there somewhere?
The taquito tower is back for sure its a good way to pander to people that like roguelike games that are all the rage right now :) Just kidding, its actually back but it will be a bit different. Well, not really, its just going to be the same thing but a bit better and you will be able to find secret things there.
The taquito tower is actually part of the game’s plot so I don’t want to ruin it, but it’s cool. Also, Taquito Tower is a game we made for Ludum Dare that Burrito Galaxy is based on. We are planning on making some other things like this. One idea I really want to include is a model building section of the game. Kind of like building a Gundam model but… in a game. You would have to use parts you find then build a real mech to pilot and fight bosses with. It won’t be like Surgeon Simulator or anything where your hands flop around the screen, that would be silly.
You’ve included typos in the speech of characters. And interaction with any object is initiated with a slap. Why did you decide to include playful touches like this?
We thought it would be funny if the only interaction you have with the world is slapping. So we kind of just went with it. Secretly, its also easier to not have to animate anything else.
The characters have typos because people type differently. The game takes place in the future where the MLA have disbanded and the English language is a complete wreck. What would your high school English teacher think now?
The sound effects add a lot of character to the game. How did you create them or pick them out? What types of sound effects do you tend to look for?
We made them, some are just us gargling or making weird noises into the mic, others are created by us with different VSTs. We try to make ones that sound cute and don’t get boring quickly. A good way to prevent that is to make a ton that cycle randomly. I’m glad you like them :~)
What has the reception of Burrito Galaxy 65 been at the shows you’ve taken it to? Any memorable reactions to it that you can share?
Lots of people seemed to like it. There was a large variety of people that played the game. Younger kids to older people, one lady who didn’t really seem to know how to play a PC game tried it out because she thought it was cute. I felt pretty happy that someone who might not normally want to play games would try this one just because it looks nice. I think that this showed we had succeeded in making a game that was fun to “play.” As in, a game that is fun even when you are not advancing the plot or getting something, just goofing around.
At PAX East we made everyone that wanted to play wear a can of Mountain Dew around their neck, and one guy just left. That was kind of funny. Also, one person from MAGFest had scented pinecones. They are the best it made everything smell very nice. Thanks pinecone guy, I really appreciate you.
Lastly, what’s your current plan regarding its launch? When do think it will be ready? What platforms will it be available on?
Hopefully before the end of the year. We want to go against the current flow of broken games being released on Steam and test it a lot so that it doesn’t explode when it is out. Of course… everyone makes mistakes.
