Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo Interview – Pocket Trap Talks Inspiration, OP Builds, and Pippit Plushies

Packing pixels, heart, and yoyo tricks in equal measure, the world of Pocket Trap and PM Studio’s Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is set to release this month.

Gamers Heroes recently got a chance to talk to Pocket Trap about Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo and what’s powering the protagonist Pippit – learn more with our interview.

Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo Interview – Pocket Trap Talks Inspiration, OP Builds, and Pippit Plushies

Gamers Heroes

Congrats on the upcoming release of Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo – and on your recent nominations at gamescom latam! Greatly enjoyed my hunt for the Mega-Batteries during the preview period. 

I love Pippit’s impressive moveset – he can reflect bullets, walk the dog, and do other feats of fancy. What went into designing these amazing moves?

Pocket Trap

Thank you so much! I’m so glad to hear you’ve been enjoying your time with the game! 

It’s always our priority to create experiences that are fun and engaging to play – and key to this objective is leveraging a relatable theme. 

We always start the development process by having the whole team throw around some ideas of day-to-day objects that could make for great gameplay mechanics. 

So we had an image board with options like a baseball bat, a hand saw, a paintbrush, a magnifying glass, and a bunch of other stuff! 

With the yoyo, however, we found that we had struck the perfect balance! It’s an object that’s no stranger to kids and former kids alike, haha! 

On top of that, the gameplay ideas were pouring in non-stop! We focused on bringing many real yoyo techniques to the world of Pipistrello. 

The best part is that the learning and mastering of these maneuvers is tied to the game’s progression, so it was a perfect translation of the real thing into the videogame realm – it’s as if they’re mastering the yoyo in real life! 

As you delve deeper into the game, you’re asked to use your creativity more and more to trace your own routes by combining these different moves – so you can chain the

Walk-the-Dog move into a Wall-Dash, then a Wall-Ride, for example, which greatly extends your platforming reach. 

It doesn’t stop there, though, as many other abilities exist for combat as well – some familiar names may be the Sleeper and the Around-the-World techniques! 

It became clear that the yoyo had great potential to create deep and extensive gameplay without sacrificing our core tenet of relatability. I’m very excited to see players discovering all of this in the full game!

Gamers Heroes

On that same note, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is one charming title!

Were there any video games, movies, television shows, or other forms of media that inspired its sheer charisma?

Pocket Trap

Pipistrello is our love letter to classic games of the Game Boy Advance era – The Minish Cap and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow are our most direct influences. 

We’ve always been big Nintendo fans since a very young age, and, perhaps due to this influence, we now tend to focus heavily on character-driven design. 

Pipistrello is no exception, with a large, eccentric cast, featuring colorful designs but with serious undertones. The game’s setting feels like a bright, beautiful, and wonderful world to live in, but if you look closer, you can discover that these crime bosses are up to some dastardly deeds, and a very troubling proposition permeates the entire city. 

In this sense, there’s a big overlap with Nintendo’s very own design approaches. We’ve even gone as far as adding a 3D Console that you can have around the game’s screen for extra retro authenticity – its buttons are responsive and you can adjust the camera to any orientation! 

But of course, we didn’t want to just mimic these classic games, but modernize and improve upon their systems. Pipistrello features a bunch of quality-of-life improvements that appeal to a modern audience. 

As for movies, I’d say Monsters Inc. is very high on the list of influences! That movie’s definitely shaped our minds on how we go about creating stories that are lighthearted on the surface, but gets darker as you unravel corporate mysteries.

I’d also say there are some influences from mobster movies, with how the Pipistrello family is structured and how manipulative they can be towards the city. We’ve put in Pipistrello all the bits we believe make for a succulent and intriguing story!

Gamers Heroes

One of the things I love about Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is the Badge system. What kinds of builds have you seen throughout testing and beyond that especially stood out to you?

Pocket Trap

It’s especially interesting to see how each type of player interacts with the system! 

We’ve taken great care to design Badges that appeal to casual and hardcore players alike. 

Some players like to be more on the offensive, so they’ll prioritize equipping the Anvil Badge, which greatly increases your attack power but makes you heavier, the Demon Badge, which boosts your power at the expense of your maximum life points, and the Berserker Badge, which increases attack when you’re at your last life point.

Other players prefer to play more cautiously, so they’ll instead go for the Reflective Badge, which automatically reflects enemy projectiles, the Mist Badge, which nullifies some damage received, and the Wing Badge, which saves you from falling down a hole in the ground. 

There are also players who want to play more creatively, so they’ll choose the Elephant Badge, which allows you to trample over enemies while doing the Walk-the-Dog move, and the Pitcher’s Badge, which increases damage dealt by objects you pick up and throw! 

Finally, for those who don’t want to abide by the rules and feel like challenging the game developers themselves (haha!), some people opt for the Skipping Stone Badge, which allows you to overcome large water bodies, and the Moon Badge, which lets your yoyo bounce off of any surface, not just diagonals. 

We’ve got over 40 Badges to try in any combination, and every single one can be further Refined to have its effects improved. 

I don’t want to spoil too much, but there are even some top-secret Badges which confer almost god-like powers – not even teleportation is out of the question! 

I hope players will keep an eye out for all of them!

Gamers Heroes

I saw that Pocket Trap has been around since 2013, with both Dodgeball Academia  and Ninjin: Clash of Carrots. 

What are some of the learnings from these titles that you’re applying to Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo?

Pocket Trap

We’ve definitely learned a lot during these 12 years heading development teams. 

One of the great points of success while developing Pipistrello was progress management. We had planned the entire structure of the game in its pre-production phase – the story, the number of bosses, the high-level layout of the dungeons, the themes for each region of the city, the yoyo abilities you’d be able to learn, and many more details. 

We divided development time by city district, and set up a schedule with 2 months allocated for each. These development chunks encompassed blocking out the layout of every room and challenge with rough assets; coding the relevant yoyo moves, enemies, and bosses; sketching then producing all the needed art assets; composing the songs; and finally putting it all together along with set-dressing and decoration through our custom level editor, Mapvania. The team looked like clockwork!

I’m very proud to say we managed to finish all of these tasks strictly on time, with the aid of our

kanban-board methodology and daily meetings with our members from all over Brazil. 

During some showcase events we’ve attended, I’ve had people say to me: “wow, you guys work fast!”

I’m so glad all the planning and effort paid off, and I couldn’t be happier with the talent and dedication displayed by everyone on the team!

Gamers Heroes

I love how you have a Collector’s Edition of Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo with a Pippit plushie  – that is too cool!

There’s definitely a market for physical editions these days – what went into its design?

Pocket Trap

Some of us on the team are collectors, so we’re certainly in that market as well, haha! 

We’ve treated the production of the Collector’s Edition with the highest level of attention. We’ve iterated the Pippit plushie’s design multiple times until we were completely satisfied with the result. 

It was the first foray of Pippit’s design into 3D, so we wanted to make sure he looked as cute as he does in the game! 

We prepared 360-degree views of Pippit, and had several prototype plushies created, with a round of feedback after each. We addressed things like materials, shapes, proportions, and even the precise positioning of sewing lines! 

I think the result speaks for itself! 

Standing at almost 40 cm (15 in) from toe to tip of the ear, I almost couldn’t believe it – it looks incredible! 

It makes for a great addition to any collection, and with the inclusion of the physical Blu-ray disc or cartridge, you’re looking at many hours of fun in your hands!

Gamers Heroes

Finally, what’s it been like working with the community on this release?

You’ve got an audience that absolutely yearns for titles like these full of heart!

Pocket Trap

It’s been extremely fun, and a bit nerve-wracking at times! 

Our games take a long time to make, and our repertoire covers a broad spectrum of genres and themes, so we never know for sure how our followers are going to react to our latest project. 

But I think what’s most important, and what makes me very happy, is noticing that people are drawn to our games for their identity, no matter how far we stride from the previous project. You can always expect lots of love from our characters and stories, and lots of precision and creativity from our gameplay. 

I can clearly see that the community appreciates all of that. 

The reaction to Pipistrello has been truly amazing ever since we revealed the game at PAX East last year and had the chance to see players’ reactions firsthand. 

We truly hope the game meets (and surpasses!) all expectations when it releases on May 28th!

On that note, the full release of Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo will come out for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

A demo is now available as well!

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