Knights and bikes

There’s a period of time as a child where every venture out through the front door is an odyssey. Whether you’re fully conscious of what your true destination is or whether you have a destination in mind at all, stepping through that portal of safety and out into the world is a step into the unknown and, perhaps as a kind of defence mechanism, we turn it into something grand, bold and heroic. Or at least we did, and so did Knights And Bikes creators Rex Crawle and Moo Yu.

“It was very loose,” former Tearaway creative lead Crawle says of the initial concept for Knights And Bikes. “It was ‘What would a Goonies RPG be like?’. That was the initial starting point. Although we stay true to that and it definitely helps with a Kickstarter to be able to say ‘Goonies’ to get people excited, bearing in mind that this was before Stranger Things came along and ripped off the Goonies as well. We had this idea of controlling a gang of kids and sending them on treasure-hunting adventures, but the more time we spent with the idea the more we identified the various strengths, and in particular which of the characters in the gang we liked most, and really honed it down into its own standalone project.”

The Goonies spirit then, more than the plot points of the film itself, is what the duo is attempting to tap into with their indie venture Foam Sword. They bring with them over a decade of game development experience each, from studios like Media Molecule (where they worked together), Lionhead and Insomniac, as well as indie projects, mobile companies and social media startups. But now they wanted to, “have some time to go around each other’s houses and play at making a videogame together,” as Crawle puts it.

“I’ve definitely oscillated between indie and studio life all the time where I go indie and start a project and then realise I don’t know any of the things that I need to know, then I go to a studio and keep that in mind to see which one of those things I can learn at the studio,” gameplay programmer Yu tells us. “When I did the Facebook startup, which Rex was part of as well, I realised I knew nothing about the business side of things, so quickly after that I joined a Silicon Valley startup and then I joined Mind Candy because obviously they could teach me a lot about business. Once I had been through all of that I felt a little bit more confident about trying it all again for Knights And Bikes.”

So, what is this indie project all about? Essentially it’s an RPG inspired by the games, both digital and real life, that Crawle and Yu played as children themselves, like Secret Of Mana and EarthBound. It’s a game that sees two young girls head out around their home island of Penfurzy, where adults are going missing. This is where some