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Kick Bastards Interview – Escaping damnation through kick-based parkour

Kick Bastards is a skill-based parkour game about kicking all the things. We talked to developer Something Something Games about the game.

Kick Bastards from Edinburgh, UK-Based studio Something Something Games is all about the kick. You’ll kick walls, you’ll kick doors, you’ll kick bad guys, and you’ll kick things we don’t even know are kickable at this time. This isn’t footie though: you’ll be using your kick-based powers to navigate parkour levels and avoid obstacles as fast as you can.

You can play the game’s demo right now on Steam Next Fest – who knows, you might get a kick out of it.

We talked to Jamie Wilson from Something Something Games on how the game’s development has been, and what we can expect from Kick Bastards.

Tell us about how Something Something Games was formed and what the studio’s history has been so far.

Something Something Games was started in 2017 as a two person studio to make Detective Bot, our first game. After we released Detective Bot in 2020, we worked on a project of making short quick games for a few months which included Ronald, a Ronald McDonald horror game; and Super Crazy Bowling, a crazy golf bowling game. We then moved onto Kick Bastards.

How was Kick Bastards conceived?

Kick Bastards actually started as an arena combat game with powerful movement abilities and of course the kick. It took a few months of building that version of the game before we realised the real fun of the game was in the movement and pivoted to the current version of the game.

What works inspired you when creating Kick Bastards? Challenge mode: you can’t mention Mirror’s Edge.

It was initially inspired by Dishonored of all things. If you play the original Dishonored in a very aggressive way by the final level you are duelling loads of enemies and you feel real powerful. This plus a love of Dark Messiah and it’s kick informed the original prototypes of Kick Bastards. Of course it shifted away from this over time but that’s how it all began.

What other mechanics can we expect in the game (other than kicking)?

The main mechanic other than kicking that is in the game is the grappling hook which will allow you to swing off objects, enemies and pull things towards you. Our goal is to use the kick as a base for lots of varied types of interactions. So far we’ve shown the basics of kicking enemies, doors and walls but we have plans to expand this greatly; think buttons, moving platforms and a bunch of different enemy types.

What has been the biggest challenge in developing the game so far?

The biggest challenge in development has been getting the visuals looking good. Neither of us are trained as artists so developing a style for the game that is compelling and looks good has been a big challenge that has required a lot of iteration and learning as we go!

Will it be possible to use the left leg to kick? Perhaps even… both legs?

It will only be the right leg that gets in on the kicking action. We have plans on using the left leg for something else but we aren’t ready to share that yet!

We don’t know much about the game’s setting other than you’re ‘escaping damnation’. What can you tell us about the game’s world?

The player plays as the last of the “Kick Bastards”, an organisation that signed a pact with the devil for great power. However, they reneged on their deal and so the devil is hunting them down. You are fleeing the devil, travelling between different worlds to escape.

Will the game feature scalable difficulty options, or is it a fixed challenge?

We aren’t going to have standard difficulty options as we don’t believe that suits the game. However, we will be including as many options as possible in the accessibility settings to allow for players to customise the experience in a suitable way for themselves.

When can we expect the game to be released and on what platforms?

We are targeting a late 2022 launch on PC and looking at a later release on consoles. Though a playable demo is available now on Steam.

You can also follow the development of Kick Bastards via the developers’ Discord server, their Twitter account, and the official website!

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