Summary

  • Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus blends new yokai creatures with traditional Japanese folklore for a unique and immersive gaming experience.
  • Every character in the game is based on real yokai stories, with attacks and personalities reflecting their origins in Japanese folklore.
  • The game emphasizes staying in the air and maintaining flow during platforming and combat challenges, inspired by the Ori games for a seamless experience.

Squid Shock Studios’ Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus is a Metroidvania, Soulslike, and platformer hybrid, but art and design director Christopher Stair tells me that a lot of original and creative thought went into creating new characters and stories that would make this game “feel at home” in the world of Japanese folklore and mythology.

Bo, the main character, is a ‘tentaihana’, a fox-like spirit who comes from the heavens. The tentaihana is a new type of yokai created specifically for the game by the team, and it fits in perfectly alongside the other established yokai, which was exactly Stair’s vision: “I wanted to tell the story of what if these tentaihana were present in Japanese folklore all along and interacting with the characters from other stories. Everything really fell into place after that.”

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As you explore the world of Strange Garden as Bo, you meet all kinds of yokai, from malevolent beings that attack you on sight to kind spirits who make you ramen. Stair tells me that a lot of research went into bringing the yokai you meet throughout the world to life.

“Almost every enemy or character in the game is based on one of these stories, their attacks and their personalities all dictated by the stories they come from,” Stair says. “One reference we used a lot was Yokai.com, which is a site that a Japanese folklore enthusiast and illustrator Matthew Meyer started to translate and document these stories.”

Yokai.com is a comprehensive encyclopedia with information on hundreds if not thousands of creatures from Japanese folklore, from well-known creatures like kappa and kitsune to more niche spirits like onmoraki and hahakigami.

Taking Inspiration But Creating Something New

Despite heavily drawing from these traditional stories, Stair notes that there was still lots of room for new ideas. “What's cool about folklore is that it’s a bit loose, it’s inconsistent, it’s vague.” This allowed Stair to take the general idea of a yokai creature and mold it into something that more closely resembled their vision for the game.

“For example, for the ‘Akaname’, who are depicted as these vile goblin-esque creatures that consume filth, I thought it would be funny if they were really just cute misunderstood creatures with tongues for tails," Stair tells me.

This spin on existing creatures and stories permeates throughout the game, creating an experience that’s distinctly folklore-inspired, but provides plenty of solid worldbuilding to dig further into, even if you’re already familiar with yokai yourself.

Sticking With The Flow

Alongside its folklore inspirations, another huge part of Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus is its platforming and Soulslike gameplay, which stresses the importance of ‘flow’, requiring you to stay in the air and hold your concentration during combat and platforming challenges.

“There is a high emphasis on keeping airborne while playing as Bo. It becomes almost a game within a game to see how long you can stay afloat. We designed almost everything around this. It’s just plain fun." Stair says.

This design philosophy is most easily seen during early boss encounters. As well as dodging and timing your attacks, you need to stay in the air to keep up your momentum and be prepared for environmental obstacles or retaliating assaults. Stair explains that this kind of movement and platforming style was directly inspired by the Ori games.

“The seamless platforming in Ori especially inspired me. [...] Once you feel like you become one with the player controller, the mobility gives you a flow state unlike anything else.”

Bringing Everything To Life Through 2D Animation

With all these ideas down on paper, it was time for Stair to bring the game to life through their stunning artwork. “In the beginning, I was doing all the art myself, but I’m not an animator and it was clear pretty early on that I would need help creating all the assets.”

So, he brought in animator Michelle Kamijo, concept artist, asset renderer, and animator Alexis Cabrera as well as Marline Animates and Lisa Buttinger.

“Marline Animates did the gorgeous animated cutscenes and later Lisa Buttinger came on to do some extra environmental stuff. We use Photoshop to do all the painting and Procreate and Clip Studio Paint for all the animations. It was definitely a long process but I think it was worth it in the end for that handcrafted touch.

“We had to get creative in the engine to make some of the frame-by-frame stuff seem more dynamic. For example, we do use some translation-type animations for anticipation frames and follow-throughs. We put the animated object inside a larger container that moves through code and animated the sprite and colliders within that main container. That way we can get all kinds of cool nuances in the movement of the characters giving them a highly efficient and customizable ‘oomf’ factor when the animations call for it.”

The combination of passionate research, an intricately designed world, well-thought-out characters, and expert animation all culminate in Bo’s vibrant and lively world. As Stair puts it, “Bo is an amalgamation of all these modern and traditional styles mixed a little with my own way of doing things.”

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