Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript of our interview with Connor, Ritual Studio’s art director, during PAX East 2025.

Ed: I have just finished playing Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson here at PAX East, which is releasing this summer. Oh, it’s almost close to release! Are you guys nervous or anything? 

Connor: Absolutely! So nervous by now!

Ed: Everyone? I am with their art director, Connor.  So, Connor, when did the project start?

Connor: Well, basically, we all met outside of college. We all knew each other from college at Rivepool Studios, the team of four. It’s also Max, Dave, and Jeff. So Jeff’s our audio guy, Dave and Max are our programmers, and I’m Connor, the artist.  Maybe seven, eight years ago, so quite a while.

Ed: How long has the game been in development?

Connor: The game has been in development for about the same amount of time. Since the amount of time we’ve known each other, we’ve been kind of working on this game.

Ed: I know I’ve seen it last year at PAX East, and I couldn’t get my hands on it. I know it was the talk of the town, and players enjoyed playing it. How did it feel that year, when everybody got their hands on it? 

Connor: It felt very validating. It felt like when I’m sitting at home in my apartment, drawing, I felt like “I hope somebody likes this.”  It’s just like grabbing another handful of Skittles. We’re here, and people are enjoying it. Little kids would come up and tell their grandma they wanna play it and teach them how to do it. Having other people tell other people how to play your game is a very cathartic, amazing experience.

Ed: Can you speak about the premise of the story? 

Connor: Yeah!  Fretless is a “GuitaRPG.” Instead of swords and shields, you have rips and bases. Instead of leveling up, you have pedals on your feet.  You gett pickups and place special strings on your guitar. I’ve dialed this down so good. I’ve done it so many times. (We both laugh.) The whole concept is everything’s musically based and fretless. That’s the whole point. 

Ed: There’s a scientist, I’m assuming, who may be your dad at the beginning of the game? 

Connor: That’s never been brought up, but maybe that could be the lore. I feel that was never our idea, but that would be kind of crazy. The main character kinda ended up looking like his kid, you know, maybe?.

Ed: Can you tell us about some of the gameplay ideas?

Connor: In the game, and with the gameplay being rhythm-based, there are marks in it where you get yellow and green. The yellow is telling you what kind of attack they’re doing. If you hit the button at the right time, they turn green.

Ed: Were you guys inspired by Paper Mario for that? 

Connor: We had a lot of iterations of trying to figure out how to show when to hit the button. Should there be a button at all? Playing that game and other games similar around that era, and especially, how turn-based combat with that extra input timing was a huge inspiration to us.

Like, Paper Mario and all that is maybe the main source because it’s kind of simple, but it could have depth. It feels deep in some parts. There’s a part where you have your super attacks, let’s just call it. The crescendo. With the crescendo, you get to press all of these buttons, similar to a rhythm game.

Ed: It makes me think of the Yakuza series because it has a rhythm game in it. How did you guys think of it?

Connor: So with that one specifically, we always knew we wanted a super move that had inputs, like DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) or something. I think Guitar Hero is our biggest inspiration. We just didn’t know how to split pixel art coming towards you in that perspective. So we’re just like, “might as well just make it left to right.”  We just kind of left it, and it worked. We never changed it.

Ed: What music genres are in Fretless? We know there’s guitar and rock, but is there anything acoustic or even a hip hop track or anything in it? 

Connor: There is a lot of representation of music. There are a variety of instruments that the main character can play. The bass guitar, the synthesizer, and the eight-string guitar. All these bosses and enemies have their music as well. So it’s like a huge, diverse amount of music going on. 

Ed: I got to the boss in this first area, and he picked out this big red keytar.  I was like, “Uh-oh? What is about to happen?” Did you guys look at instruments like that to give to the bosses for them to have a big weapon to show that they’re a threat?

Connor: Yes. So that’s totally on me because I was just watching a little bit too much Naruto at the time, and I was restarting it. So one of the bad guys, Zabuza, has this giant sword. It’s a very specific shape, and I was like, “Oh, I want that.” So I just immediately drew that, and then I figured, “Oh, I can put keys on it.” That’d be kinda cool. Oh, it could have a handle. I just kept going, and then I took inspiration from whatever I’m doing at the moment. Jeff, our audio guy, also helped because  I have to come up with a visual first. He comes up with the audio for things like that. Sometimes, we would feel that a certain sound would fit it. So he’s able to do the audio first, and then I do the art after.

Ed: How many designs did you have to go through to finalize some of the enemies, characters,  funny characters with funny looks? 

Connor: How long did it take me to design those? Thousands of iterations. Oh. It’s like everything was debated, but when you care about something, you’re going to put the time and effort to see it through. We even looked at the signs, even with the arrows. That was a whole conversation. You know what I mean? I think we knew which battles to choose on all those. 

Ed: Did you design any of the backgrounds, like the environments?

Connor: So we have an environment artist who worked on all the backgrounds, but I made all the grass in the canopy. A lot is going on. I worked on the animations, but some of the aspects of the UI is another artist. I made it all animated.

Ed: Did you draw any comic panels to get an idea of how a scenario would go?

Connor: I did! That helped my process. I used to not do that. I used to straight up sit down and draw pixel art immediately. The key to making all these skills look cool and juicy and bouncy is,  they have to be on beat. So there are only four beats per measure, kind of like this. So I’d bring a little sketch back, a notebook, and break it into four slices. I want the character to be in this pose, and then this one. Everyone on the team gets hyped about it!  This helps the process more because if I didn’t have that, I feel like it just wouldn’t be so iconic.

Ed: Did you guys go for a 16-bit look for it? 

Connor: Originally, I think we all played Hyper Light Drifter, so we love that aesthetic. Yes.

But it just kind of got modernized. I like to put the juice and everything into the frames. 

Ed: What kind of style, if you all create a sequel, would you like to go for? Would you still make it pixelate, or would you like to do a cel-shaded style like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker?

Connor: If I were good at that, right now, I would. I feel like I would have to relearn a lot. I’m down, and I think it would be easier this time. Everything I learned from this project, I feel like it could apply to anything, but probably stick with this because there’s a quarter of the game that’s not even the game because we thought it wouldn’t work, but that could be the next game. You have to make a lot of decisions to cut things off to make it work. 

Ed: Would you guys like to do a Guitar Hero style for an expansion to it, where you have multiple players playing it? 

Connor: That’d be very cool because that was the original idea, but it ended up being single player, and then your instruments were your band. So we kind of pivoted. We kind of took that, but we pivoted a little. So it’s like a different version of it.  But that was the original idea. 

Ed: Are there any art styles that you do, outside of pixel art?

Connor: Yeah. So I do. I traditionally did rotoscoping for skateboarding animations. I love skating, and I love people who are good at skating. So I would just draw over that. I did all the Rick and Morty skate animations for a long time. 

Ed: Really!?

Connor: That was me. Like, Morty slamming and blood goes everywhere.  That was me. I’ll get a commission once in a while, but it’s not viable. This was going on in the background the whole time. Eventually, Jeff and Dave quit their jobs. Next thing you know, we’re making a game. 

Ed: So I have just two more questions. The first question is, I’ve been writing an article about games that have earned their stripes. Is there a particular game or franchise? Personally, for you, it could be an indie, board game, card game, whatever, that you feel like has earned its stripes?

Connor: Would it be a physical one or even a digital one? 

Ed: Physical, digital, doesn’t matter.

Connor: I don’t know. There are so many good games. I’ll be honest. I play Rocket League all the time. I feel like they are in their stride. Even though Epic is doing their own thing and taking it in the direction that most players don’t want, the game itself, just straight out of the gate, was amazing. 

Ed: When it first came out, that game was a hit. No one knew that you could mix car racing and soccer together. 

Connor: Yeah! Now it’s like a whole esports!

Ed: Alright. My last question for you is, what is your go-to snack?  With the team, for yourself on a weekday or the weekend. 

Connor: So I start work, I sit down, we do our little morning meeting, and my wife comes in with a little plate of, like, cut-up mango slices.

Ed: Oh. That’s my jam!  Well, can you tell everybody about where they can find and learn more about Fretless? What platforms can they find it on?

Connor: Yeah! So they can find Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson on Steam right now, and you can download the demo.  The game comes out this summer. You can also add it to your wishlist.

Ed: Is it just PC right now?

Connor: So it’s just PC right now, but we are with Litigious, who ports games to all the other consoles. So we would like to have it on all the consoles.

Ed: That’d be amazing. You already know that we need this on the Nintendo Switch 2 or Nintendo Switch.

Connor: Send us a dev kit. (We both laugh)

Ed: Thank you so much, Connor, for your time. Everybody, please, go and wishlist this game and be prepared to purchase Fretless: The Wrath Of Riffson this summer on Steam. Thank you so much for your time.

Connor: Thank you so much. I appreciate this.

Edit: After this interview, Playdigious and Ritual announced that the game was delayed to the summer. Changes in the article have been made to reflect that announcement.

To hear more about Fretless: The Wrath Of Riffson, check out Boss Rush Spotlight interview with Ritual Studios, hosted by Pat and Stephanie.

Feature Image: Rituals Studios

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