Sword-wielding robot meets gunslinging space frog in Shoulders of Giants, a clever tandem action game that has you controlling both as you strive to stop the forces of Entropy from spreading across the universe.

The new trailer gives us a much deeper look at the game, so we took the opportunity to chat with Kyle Erf, CTO and vice president of developer Moving Pieces, about how they came up with the interesting mash-up, what coop play will be like, and more.

Where did you all come up with the idea for this game? To say it's unusual is an understatement.

Erf: Thank you! The game went through quite a few different genres, from a puzzle platformer to an RTS, before finally becoming the action game it is today. It was a very iterative process. We had a huge pile of ideas and tried to put those in conversation with each other through rapid prototyping. It was slow and took months to get anything cohesive, but the nice side effect to this kind of development is that we truly grew the vision as a group. There is no auteur here, and nobody feels like the game is “their” idea.

What has remained constant as the initial inspiration for the game was the simple idea of a small character riding on an enormous biped’s back. We were really drawn to the silhouette and juxtaposition it would create. Plus, there’s a lot of warm nostalgia that comes with “small-character-riding-on-big-character” for gamers like us. We coined the name of the game, Shoulders of Giants, immediately during that first brainstorming meeting.

Most of the other elements are just inspired by things we like. Patrick (McAvena) is in love with sci-fi illustrations and has always wanted to make colorful sci-fi worlds, so we put that in. This game didn’t have to be set in space to do what it does, but space is cool, you know? 

As a team, the PlayStation 2 was a major event in our lives, and we are all enamored with Ico, and the shadowy figures you fight in that game. Discussions around our memories of Ico eventually led us to the light/dark landscape transitions in the game, which mark your progress as you restore life to these sci-fi worlds and do damage to the dark forces of Entropy overtaking them.

Finally, as the game became more and more of an action game, we endeavored to change elements of the 3D action adventure and roguelike games we play based on the specific bits and pieces we like. For instance, we love collecting loot, but our favorite part of loot-based games isn’t getting that charm with +10 frost damage, but rather getting pieces of equipment that let you radically reorient your playstyle and actively exploit cool new interactions. So the ability pickups in Shoulders of Giants are designed to give players a constant drip of that.

The dual character mechanic is a neat twist, how hard was it to nail that mechanic and make it fun?

Erf: The dual character gameplay was fun immediately. Everything else was the problem. 

The prototype game actually involved long stretches of just playing as the frog, jumping off the robot, and going to grab essential items to power up your robot friend while running away from ghastly monsters. Powering up the robot and controlling both characters was meant as a short reward where you could finally smash all the baddies who were giving you trouble.

The main issue was being on top of the robot was way more fun than the so-called “main gameplay loop” so we were constantly trying to make that part of the game better. After one frustrating week, it became clear that if we had to try so hard to justify that element of the game, it probably wasn’t worth keeping in. So we ditched it and put the frog on the robot full time, and it just clicked.

Keeping the frog’s shooting abilities and own camera setup to switch to while shooting gave the game a really unique feel—even if, when you get down to it, you’re essentially controlling one character with both melee and ranged attacks. It’s kind of ineffable. The vibe is just different this way. Thankfully we’ve had almost no complaints about motion sickness so far!

The main growing pain that came from the dual character reorientation was ironically making the robot feel less “giant.” That is, making movement more nimble in general, making it able to jump, and able to run. All of a sudden it wasn’t this great hulking machine you had to support—it was you. And people intuitively expected much more of a fast-paced experience.

We are still working hard to make sure neither melee or ranged combat is overpowered in Shoulders of Giants. We want players to feel like they benefit from using both, and for strategies to emerge that utilize both the robot and the frog. The best moments in the game are when you use two or three abilities together, swapping between the frog and robot. Sometimes it feels like you’re a team pulling off some kind of heist! And of course that’s doubly true when you play the game in co-op.

What can you say about how the game treats the four-player cooperative play?

Erf: Co-op actually is an element of the game in-universe. The main story of the game deals with bringing in entities from outside time and space, which includes other versions of the frog and robot. That’s all we’ll say for now. 

Other friendly characters in the game include the space animals living on the Axial Tree, the game’s hub world. These talking critters are all survivors of the Entropy crisis and have their own backstory and quests for the player to undertake, in addition to each being a vendor of some kind.

We have the psychic Owl, the leader of these intergalactic resistance fighters. There’s the Panda, a metal-hungry mechanic who sometimes snacks on his tools. There’s the veteran weapons-expert Baboon. And we have Dr. Chameleon, who runs the otherworldly telescope that sends you on your missions. 

How have things changed between the trailer you put out last year and this new trailer?

Erf: When we put out that first teaser last year, a lot of elements of the game were prototypes behind a facade. It’s all real gameplay, but the level generation system barely worked, weapons all behaved exactly the same, and abilities were hard-coded.

Now the game is, frankly, a real game, and in addition to everything working, it has networked co-op! Essentially everything has been rewritten since we debuted the game over a year ago, and the art style has progressed as well. We’re really excited for this trailer to show off multiplayer and the colorful array of options available to players.

Compared to our teaser, we’re also doing a much better job of showcasing the visuals of the game. Our initial concept was much gloomier, but now people can see how graphically the game sometimes turns into the bulk section of a candy store.