Big Hops Interview – Luckshot Games’ Chris Wade Talks Speedrunning Community, Stellar Team, and More

A fresh and froggy action-platformer, Luckshot Games’ Big Hops is making a splash with a successful Kickstarer and heart to spare.

Gamers Heroes recently spoke with Luckshot Games’ Chris Wade on Big Hops’ froggy adventure, talking everything from its community to its dream team to even its fantastic voice over work – learn more with our interview.

Big Hops Interview – Luckshot Games’ Chris Wade Talks Speedrunning Community, Stellar Team, and More

Gamers Heroes

Congrats on the Kickstarter! I saw you just reached your goal this morning.

What has it been like working with the community on this release?

Chris Wade

So it’s not our first time on Kickstarter!

10 years ago, with our first game Sausage Sports Club, I was coming out of school and learning to make games.

My games partner Tom Duncan does the audio, music, and sound design for Big Hops. 

He and I did a Kickstarter for Sausage Sports Club then. We learned the ropes, focusing on social media, talking to people about what the message of the game was. 

It’s been fun to do that again!

However, it’s been weird and different now, because now a lot of people are on Bluesky instead of Twitter – and a lot of our community is still on Twitter!

Still, we’ve been talking to people and also put up a demo this time, which was different from last time.

It’s been reviewed really well on Steam, and we immediately had this influx of speedrunners that were all really enthusiastic about techniques and like sharing videos!

There’s a page on speedruns.com with a Big Hops channel there, and they’ve been owning it!

They’ve been pitching to me what they think the categories should be, also inventing new ones. 

It’s been really exciting and fun to watch!

Our team is excited and grateful and kind of gratified to see that people are like excited and engaging with what we’re doing. 

Gamers Heroes

On that same note, I saw Big Hops was inspired by Mario, Sonic Adventure, Breath of the Wild, and the like –  I got 130 emblems in the first, and 180 in the second!

Those are all fantastic games, all with heart. Were there any standout elements, like Korok Seeds or anything from those titles that may have inspired Big Hops? 

I know you’ve certainly got your own unique thing going! Love to know inspirations though.

Chris Wade

I think I’ll start with Breath of the Wild, because in terms of the spirit of the game, probably the most inspirational when it came out.

Playing it, it was so exciting to see a reinvention of a genre I was really familiar with.

The thing that stood out to me the most was this modern feeling of letting the player do whatever they want, having more agency and control – a real sense of freedom!

Zelda historically is very restricted – you can’t even jump from going off a ledge!

So this title then lets you climb on anything – it was really, really crazy, and it made the game feel huge, rich, and deep.

There was also a lot of jankiness that didn’t ruin the game. 

This kind of gave me permission. Our games are on an indie scale, and maybe we’ll only ever have five or 10 people working on them.

However, trusting that if we give players something interesting enough, it doesn’t matter if it’s a little rough around the edges – this gave me permission to start experimenting with the veggie kind of interaction paradigm.

I know most people are going to see the frog and the frog tongue, and that’s going to feel like what the game’s about. 

But once you get into it, it’s about planting veggies and growing your own path – combining the different veggies you unlock over the game to be really crazy and do your own thing!

I think Zelda letting players climb and giving you the gadgets to be creative – that was the number one specific game design interaction that was really inspirational. 

I think everybody also talks about Super Mario Odyssey. 

I think for us, it’s not one Mario game that was inspirational – it’s all of them!

You’ll see that we’ve reference moves from titles like Super Mario Sunshine like the slide dive.

In Super Mario Odyssey, you can kind of do a mid-air dive and change your direction a little bit. 

In Big Hops, the dive is much easier to accomplish – it doesn’t require a bunch of buttons, and you can also change direction. Think more like 90 or more degrees, whereas Super Mario Odyssey was limited to more like the 45 degrees in front of you. 

We also are trying to extend the move set and add more sort of options – and not just be Mario.

There’s tongue swinging, there’s hook shotting – that’s like the Sonic Adventure games you mentioned!

We’ve also got wall-running; there wasn’t a particular game that we like referenced super-hard for that, but Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is probably the one that I feel it is closest to. 

The thing I want people to get, – especially if they play the demo – is that the game feels very itself and unique! It doesn’t feel like a Mario rip off, or a Zelda ripoff, or whatever.

Gamers Heroes

It’s still its own unique thing – I can respect that!

I’d say it’s a tribute, and it’s taking from all the right sources – going even further beyond. I love it!

One thing I also saw is that you’re going to have a full voiceover for Big Hops. I have tremendous respect for VAs – after my own heart, and nothing but respect. 

What’s it been like working with this talent?

Chris Wade

It’s been really exciting!

The two sort of voice casts that we’ve that we’ve gone through the process with so far are the voice of Hop and the voice of Diss.

Ben Diskin plays Diss – the antagonist of the game. He’s been in a million things!

People are always DMing us, who is this guy? I think I recognize him from somewhere!

Hop is played by Greg Vinciguerra – he’s a newer guy, but really, really, really talented!

It was so funny when he joined the first call to  record the first session of Hop. We listened to his reel, and were really excited about his voice!

And when he joined the call and just started talking to us to kind of prepare his voice was exactly what we think of as Hop!

So Tom and I looked at each other, and I said:

“That’s his voice – he’s not putting on the voice of Hop; that’s like, just who he is!” 

It’s wonderfully exciting!

Working with Ben is really exciting too! 

He’s just such a pro, and has been doing this so long. After recording 10 long lines, we got into this crazy flow and got done two or three times as much as we expected to in the time that we had.

This is true for both of them, but their takes on the character and their acting choices were surprising in ways that we didn’t even think of for each of the characters. 

It was just a total joy – it was really fun, exciting, and energizing!

We left each, each one of those sessions being like:

“Oh, this is going to be so awesome!”

And then Tom rushes to plug everything in as fast, because we’re so excited about it. 

And then everybody’s like:

“Oh my God, this is even better than we thought it could be!”

Just really fun stuff!

Gamers Heroes

On that same note, I know Luckshot Games has a dream team of people.

We’ve mentioned the voice actors – what’s been like working with such an incredible crew? 

It sounds like there’s a really great team making something really great here, and that same heart that you’re talking about is probably reflected with everybody.

Chris Wade

Thanks for that question! That gives me a good chance to shout everybody out…

Our team is amazing! There’s not too many returning people from Sausage Sports Club, but this time we’ve been able to have a lot of people!

Let’s see if I can run through them…

I definitely want to shout out everybody like our art team! Jonny, Zoë, and Brody all have different styles, but all bring a truly unique, interesting design reference.

I think I mentioned this in the Kickstarter update, but Jonny – one of the one of the references he brought to our ocean area was the movie Spring Breakers that was directed by Harmony Korine.

It’s kind of like gangsters in Miami, Florida with RiFF RAFF the rapper – it’s really weird. 

It’s not something you would necessarily associate with Big Hops style, but the costumes of the sort of pirate-y characters in our ocean area pull all of this Miami-punk gangster reference that’s so interesting and unique. 

Zoë has added such a such an interesting touch!  I don’t want to say the word cutesy, because that simplifies it too much.

She uses almost like a Tumblr-aesthetic to the shopkeeper characters in our interior spaces that gives the game a lot of the character and charm that we’re talking about!

Then Brody, who’s who’s been on the project a while, helped us kind of define a lot of the art style. He built test scenes and has done experiments.  We created such a rich, varied world!

There are a couple of images on the Kickstarter page that are slices of all the different scenes in the game. There’s just so many – almost 35 different art styles or flavors to the game that feel very unique.

I think when Big Hops comes out, something that will stand out for everybody is how much of an adventure it feels like! 

This is a result of how many different feeling places players will go to – and so quickly.

Gamers Heroes

I know that each world of Big Hops features its own self-contained story. 

Do you have a favorite you can speak of right now, an “EXCLUSIVE WORLD PREMIERE” scoop – SGF style?

Chris Wade

Let’s talk about our ocean world! This is the second world.

The first world is the desert, and then players will go through the ocean after that, which is focused on otters and seagulls. 

When Hop shows up, you show up to this Junker town – an ocean village featuring shacks built out of like found materials on the ocean, very inspired by Waterworld.

The city’s kind of on fire when you show up as well.

Everybody’s panicking, and Hop has been invited to help. 

As it turns out, there’s this pirate who’s kind of got a vendetta against an oil company who’s moved in and has started setting the different oil rigs on fire.

It’s causing a ton of havoc, creating a dangerous situation for the workers of the oil rigs – and also the people of the Junker town village.

And so Hop was asked to help them. You might be able to find your airship part, but you also have to put out this fire and fix the situation. 

Pretty, pretty quickly you’re able to solve that problem, but throughout the ocean you stumble into more and more chaos and disaster.

At one point, Hop gets kidnapped, and another point one is forced against their will to join a pirate crew!

I guess that’s as much of a hint I want to get to the story!

Gamers Heroes

That’s great! I was about to say – love how one can experience it for themselves!

Chris Wade

Gameplay wise, the oceans have a lot of cool stuff too.

You pretty quickly learn to swim deep underwater – you can see it in the reveal trailer!

Some of the coolest veggies we have are a bubble fruit that when you throw it at the wall, and it spawns many bubbles that Hop could hookshot into. And when you hookshot into these bubbles, you can launch yourself almost like a pool cue ball.

From there, you can bounce off walls and other things, chaining things together to get super high up!

The other cool one is our oil balls. If you throw them at a wall, it sort of sticks and creates a hookshot point that will help the player ricochet off and give you a jump. 

In our trailer, you can see a clip of Hop chaining multiple things together to do a really cool fast route during the ocean levels.

Gamers Heroes

That’s pretty cool!

I also saw there’s going to be Mixtapes coming to the game.

We’re talking about VAs – and that’s fantastic! – but music is great too. 

Are there any stand out tracks you’re especially proud of?

Chris Wade

I think my favorite is one that Tom reworked recently from the desert world. 

Part of the desert has players going into the sewer to sneak into an organized crime family. On that note, the Mixtape is a collection of several songs from this area. 

The mixtape is called “Sewer Jazz,” and it provides a dark, creepy feeling. You’re kind of doing stealth stuff, but it’s also funky and jazzy – and has a little bit of like saxophone in it.

Gamers Heroes

Finally, I know I want to keep this short – can I get you a burrito? 

I don’t have five figures to give you, but at the very least, I can DoorDash it!

I don’t know if it’s as good as California one, but we can see what we can do [laughs]

Chris Wade

I would feel so guilty taking a burrito from you! I appreciate that offer though.

I’m just happy to talk about the game! It’s exciting to have your interest and to be able to talk more about the title.

Be sure to check out Big Hops via its official Steam page – a demo is also available!

Meanwhile, one can pledge their support to the Big Hops Kickstarter via its official page – there are still seven days to pledge your support as of this writing!

One can also join the conversation via the official Discord channel.

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