Chris Wade, Founder of Luckshot Games Talks BIG HOPS – Interview Series

What has four legs, builds pathways out of vegetables, and wears drawstring hoodies like they’re going out of fashion? BIG HOPS, from the sounds of it. That’s right — studio Luckshot Games is dabbing its tongue on a new frog-centric lily pad, and is currently seeking somewhere in the vicinity of $40,000 via its official Kickstarter campaign to bring its parkour-based 3D platforming game to consoles and PC.

“The design trend at the time of giving players real freedom and creativity in games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Spelunky, and Rimworld was so inspiring. Selfishly and jealously, I wanted to see emergent gameplay in my favorite genre,” Luckshot Games write in their Kickstarter elevator pitch.

“Since then, BIG HOPS has become a maximalist game and taken on many more ideas and inspirations. Its mechanics, story, vibes, and humor draw on so many games and TV shows stretching back 40 years. Mario (64, Odyssey, Sunshine, and Galaxy) and Zelda (BOTW, Wind Waker, and Ocarina of Time) have both been huge influences. We also spend a lot of time talking about Sonic Adventure, Spelunky, Kingdom Hearts, Psychonauts, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Spongebob, and Steven Universe.”

Fascinated by the idea of combining these influences into one frog-fumbling IP, I recently decided to reach out to Luckshot Games’ Founder, Chris Wade, to delve a little deeper into BIG HOPS’ pond.

Thanks for speaking with us today — we appreciate the opportunity to learn more about BIG HOPS. Before we dip our toes into that pond, however, let’s talk a bit more about Luckshot Games and your experience in the field. Would you be ever so kind as to tell us that tale?

Chris: Right on. I founded Luckshot Games in 2015 to make innovative, high quality games with a focus on character and charm. Our first game was Sausage Sports Club, which was a party game about floppy animals playing sports that came out on Steam and Switch in 2018. Before BIG HOPS, I worked on a range of projects but something common between them was smaller teams with a strong desire to innovative on design. Some of those projects include Vacation Simulator, Battle Chef Brigade, and Manifold Garden.

You’ve briefly spoken about the core influences on the game and the franchises that helped bring BIG HOPS to life. Would you mind elaborating on that? What inspired you to take that initial leap?

Chris: The very beginning of BIG HOPS came from when I was working at the VR game company Owlchemy Labs as a senior gameplay designer on Vacation Simulator. I was having this love-hate relationship with VR where I was excited about how to deep and interesting it was to be able to interact with literally everything (which was very against the AAA design trend), while also being frustrated at not being able to move the player or let them move in interesting ways because of VR’s motion-sickness risk.

So from there I got the two design pillars of BIG HOPS which were deep locomotion and high interactivity.

I started prototyping BIG HOPS in 2019 and I had those thoughts in my head and had been playing Mario Odyssey and Zelda: BOTW and thought wow I wish the interesting emergence and player freedom of Zelda could work in a 3D platformer and still keep the same movement depth as any of the Mario games. And looking back that was an insanely ambitious goal and I’ll have to leave it to players to decide if we succeeded.

We won’t ask for a whole bunch of spoilers, don’t worry! That said, we’re eager to learn more about BIG HOPS’ story. Would you mind filling in the blanks for us?

Chris: I’ll give you the higher level answer than what we’ve shared in marketing copy, because this longform interview seems good for it.

BIG HOPS is the story of a young frog named Hop, who is bored at home on his family’s farm wishing for adventure. He’s suddenly kidnapped by a mysterious spirit called Diss and is immediately conflicted about his new situation- this is an opportunity for adventure, but my family needs me and thinks I’ve abandoned them. So then adventure ensues either to get home or for its own sake.

In each world you visit, you’ll get involved with a friend undergoing a similar about how to balance individual pursuits and social responsibility. Each has a different answer and our goal is to encourage the player to think about that balance and where it fits in their own lives. By the end of the game you’ll learn Diss also has a relationship with this question and your conflict with him is very directly related to it. I’ll resist getting more specific than that…

I’m explaining the subtext here and we’ll see if that’s how players connect with the game. But that’s the stuff I was thinking about writing the game and I hope that theme resonates with players.

From what we’ve heard, BIG HOPS’ four distinct worlds will be a huge selling point for the game. Please could you tell us more about these areas, as well as how each of them will differ in their characteristics and challenges?

Chris: (Details Below)

Forest:

Hop’s home forest is simple and idyllic. Nothing happens here and that’s how they like it. You’ll spend your time here on a hike with your sister Lily.

Red Desert: 

A huge open Desert filled with fiery peppers, slingshot flingers, hidden challenges, and a populated town called Duster Bluffs tucked away in the mountainside. The rabbit villagers there are dealing with a growing sinkhole and you quickly meet a masked stranger with a hunch about who’s behind it.

Open Ocean:

A chain of islands and oil rigs populated by otters and seagulls. You’ll find a sea village called Junktown, get kidnapped by pirates, and sneak into an underwater power plant to try and activate it (against the wishes of it’s corporate developer).

Shattered Mountain:

Years afters a devastating mining disaster you’ll meet the survivors in the remnants in the bowels of a mountain. Quickly you get mixed in with some punk kids who want to break in and explore the collapsed mines for treasure. Meanwhile the survivalist commune Havenites are watching your every move.

Let’s talk a bit more about the gameplay. From the parkour mechanics to the signature tongue-tapping tool — BIG HOPS clearly has its fingers in a lot of pies. Tell us, how will all of these moving pieces converge to make the game both fluid and fun?

Chris: Explaining how gameplay comes together to be fun is a bit like explaining a joke, so my best recommendation is to head over to Steam to check the free demo out yourself.

What I will say is there’s a mix of familiar feeling platformer basics at the start and we keep building and adding layers through the demo to ease you into the game’s complexity. Combining climbing, wall running, and then tongue-swinging can take some getting used to. Throwing down veggies so they do what you want can be a learning process too. And then lastly using the backpack to store and recall items when you need them is different from what you’re used to.

Once you’re acclimated after the first hour or so you’ll start to have the muscle memory and understand to combine the different veggie building pieces with your moveset and then you’ll feel like the whole level is your playground.

BIG HOPS has been in active development for several years now. We’re curious, how far along are you in terms of bringing it to its target platforms? Are we likely to see it hit consoles and PC before year’s end, or are we being overly optimistic?

Chris: We’re in really good shape to get the game out this year. The whole game exists and you can play through it without many blocking issues, but there’s a lot of polish and refinement we need to do and it’s a big game (clocking in around 15 hours). Expect to see it this year on Switch and PC and keep your fingers crossed about the other platforms.

Please could you tell us more about the Kickstarter campaign and the goals that you’re working to achieve as a team? If you don’t mind me asking, how will the full backing of future players aid BIG HOPS in the long term?

Chris: For us the Kickstarter is about finishing strong. We need the money to add a little more development time, add VO, localize to a few popular languages, do proper QA, and get to work on those console ports sooner rather than later.

Kickstarter aside, where else might potential followers be able to learn more about BIG HOPS? Are there any useful social channels, newsletters, or perhaps any other notable reading materials that you wouldn’t mind sharing with us?

Chris: My social profiles are still the best place. Here’s Bluesky and Twitter (X).

Thanks again for taking the time to speak with us about BIG HOPS, Chris. We’re looking forward to catching more of it over the coming months!

You can find even more information on Luckshot Games’ BIG HOPS by pledging to the Kickstarter page here. For even more pre-launch updates on the game, be sure to add it to your wishlist on Steam here.