We are in the launch week of our hand-drawn tag team brawler, Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch, a passion project that we are proud of that has been in development for a “couple” of years now. The team has been resilient, sticking it out through ups and downs, marriages, births, illnesses, industry shakeups, and the BBL epidemic.
Since I have the space to share our experience I thought we would go deep like a Navy seal and talk about how it all started…
11 years ago on a sunny afternoon in Berkeley CA, I was sitting at a boutique pizza joint with a hot slice and a cold beer. Sitting across from me was a dapper gentleman with a vintage baseball cap, long hair and aviator glasses, also holding a brew. It was Trevor Fehrman, the actor who played Elias in “Clerks II,” who I met through a mutual friend at IGN.
We clanked dranks, took a sip, and started going in deep about video game history, gaming culture and our top 5 games of all time. He mentions that he is glad we connected because he wants to make an indie game and proceeds to drop the bomb on me…
“Hey so, my friend Kevin Smith gifted me the rights to make a Jay and Silent Bob video game, and I need some help to make this happen.”
I spit my drink out, my jaw dropped and hit the table, choking and coughing I took a moment and looked up. “Kevin, what?! That is amazing!”
I was dumbfounded because my team and I have been fans of Smith’s work for a long time and think Jay is hilarious. While spending countless hours working on our last game and pushing through my master’s thesis, I would watch “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” “Mallrats” and the Evening with Kevin Smith Q&A sessions for creative motivation and mental comfort snacks to maintain my sanity.
So, Trevor and I talked for hours, met multiple times, became friends, and were determined to figure out how we could bring this game into existence. I told Trevor we would be down, but for my team to put effort into this project I would need Kevin to give us his blessings and rights to make a game with his beloved characters.
That next evening, I was sitting at my computer working through emails. I took a swig of Yerba Mate and after opening another message, my reflex kicked in again. I nearly spit it out when I saw an email from Trevor, with Kevin included saying we were all good to make the game!
That email was all I needed and we were off to the races. Trevor and I started working on the narrative design, story and opening dialog, and our Interabang team immediately clocked in to start the production process, design work, and concepting the most ridiculous character design ideas and gameplay for Chronic Blunt Punch.
The concept was to make a traditional arcade brawler with adult themes that match Kevin’s creative sensibility and our own humor and character design. The premise was that it is Dante’s Inferno but instead of taking place in hell, Jay and Silent Bob get trapped in a mysterious, mystical mall that escalates into madness the further the player gets through each level.
At this point we were self-funding the project independently, while doing work for hire on some AAA projects. To get this thing off the ground, we truly needed to find a way to fund the full production of the game.
While in the Double Fine Indie Workspace, then-COO Justin Bailey, who was rolling out a new crowdfunding and investment platform called Fig to help fund Psychonauts 2 and other big indie titles, pitched me on running a campaign through their platform. Fig would handle the marketing for the campaign and also invest in the game.
We had the team and our first investor. The next step was to meet with Kevin to share our plan and concepts. The meeting was at Kevin’s house. I stepped on his porch, pressed the doorbell, and anxiously awaited a maid or male servant to answer. To our surprise, Kevin answered through the ring camera and unlocked the door. As we entered, we followed Kevin up the stairs and into his tv room where we were surrounded by loads of fan art and memorabilia from movies and merchandise.
I came in ready to present a full pitch deck, but he cut me off and said, “you guys can fund this through the crowdfunding campaign, I don’t need a pitch; you’ve got this.” Kevin even put in his own money. Relieved, we chilled, smoked, and then mapped out the campaign together.
Shortly after we strategized the nuts and bolts of the campaign, we launched and received incredible support. The campaign included touring with Jason Mewes, appearance on Kevin Smith’s podcast, and we even shot the crowdfunding video with Feargus Urquhart out of the Obsidian office.
The campaign was a success, and we got to work. Starting development out of the Double Fine offices and then remote, we created animation and combat systems that worked similarly to fighting game engines. We dialed in the look and feel of the game and created production pipelines to expand and contract development as needed remotely.
Two years into production, there were some external investment changes out of our control, which slowed things down. We reacted by pivoting when given the opportunity to partner with LRG founders Josh and Doug who helped us fund a retro 8-bit brawler called Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl. Tomas Guinan and I teamed up and built the game in 9 months, released it in 12 months and gave our backers a dope game as a bonus while simultaneously raising finishing funds for Chronic Blunt Punch through sales instead of investment. It worked!
We grew our team with folks like Angry Metal, Toni Leys, Spoonybard and other creatives to boost production value and join us in the marathon to finish the game.
While we were in our stride to completion we connected with Digital Eclipse to help with QA, Porting and publishing. A year later, they joined with Atari, who have helped us get to the finish line through localization and porting with Alchemy.
It has been a crazy ride, full of tons of interesting zigs and zags, relationships, studio and personal evolution. But all in all, it has been a great ride, and we like what we have created out of love for each other and the culture of game development.
Blammo! We hope you dig our little game.
Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch
Atari, Digital Eclipse, The MIX GAMES
Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch combines incredible stylized, hand drawn animation, character design, and over the top combat and badass catchphrases in a side-scrolling, tag-team, beat-’em-up. Our heroes embark on an epic adventure from their humble, suburban New Jersey Quick Stop to an unearthed mystical mall that has unleashed an evil hold on the city.
No matter if you play solo and tag swap between characters or with your hetero lifemate in couch co-op, you’ll be performing special moves and outrageous combos.
Developed with the full blessing, enthusiasm and voice-acting quips from Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith themselves, Chronic Blunt Punch gives players the ultimate, profound, and profane Jay and Silent Bob experience.
Features
– Hand-Drawn Art and Animation: Incredibly detailed, expressive and highly inspired hand-drawn animations.
– Insane combos: Bust out a cornucopia of irreverent special moves and combos that link together to create explosive finishers.
– Super Moves: Build up your super meter to launch video game inspired super attacks or save up your super meter and transform Jay and Silent Bob into Bluntman and Chronic to freeze time and deliver a devastating attack.
– Local Co-Op: Play solo or with your hetero lifemate with two-player couch co-op. Tag you’re it, snackpack.
– Cameo-palooza: During your journey, interact with cameo characters from the Viewaskewniverse and call them in to help you during intense moments.
The post How Interabang Brought Jay and Silent Bob Back for Chronic Blunt Punch appeared first on Xbox Wire.
