Eddie: Hello everybody, this is Eddie V. from Boss Rush Network. I’m here at Dungeon Lurker. Just got to experience this 2D beat-em-up roguelite game.  I have the creative director of the game. Can you introduce yourself? 

Alex: Sure thing. I’m Alex Rushdy, and I’m the creative director at 13AM Games.  

Eddie: Yes. So how did you get into playing video games, and how did you get into game development?

Alex: So as a kid, I would say the first video games I probably played were in arcades, or at least arcade machines. That’s definitely what got me into it. Growing up, my neighbors had, like, a Game Boy, Super Nintendo, and stuff. Eventually my dad bought it off of them. So we had a Super Nintendo and a Game Boy Color growing up. That’s what kicked it off. From there, the rest is history.

As far as game development, I initially never wanted to go into game development. I didn’t think it was something I wanted to do. I wanted to go into film. I had the opportunity to apply to two programs: one for film and one for video games for game design. I sent in applications to both programs, and I just said, whoever accepts me, that’s what I do. I got accepted into games. From there, I met Justin and a bunch of other guys in the program. We developed a game called Runbow, and that kind of launched our careers.  We’ve been working together now for 12 years. 

Eddie: Runbow sounds like a Contra game with a spoof take on Rambo. 

Alex:  It’s supposed to be like Running Rainbow. It’s a nine-player party game.  Yeah. Came out originally on the Wii U, believe it or not.  

Eddie: WHAT?

Alex:  Yeah.  

Eddie: How did I not hear about this!? 

Alex: Yeah. So now it’s available on everything. So yeah.

Eddie: My friend and I talk about the Wii U a lot because I host the Nintendo Pow Block podcast. Oh wow!!! Well, can you give us the premise for Dungeon Lurker?

Alex: Sure. So Dungeon Lurker is a retro fantasy, kind of roguelite. It has you going from floor to floor to floor, trying to get deep into the bottom of a cursed dungeon. Every time you die, you’re going to lose all your progress and get kicked out to the town where you can upgrade your character with some permanent abilities, and you can go back in. So it’s a pretty classic dungeon crawling setup, but you are not just playing this game. You’re playing a copy of a game that belonged to someone before you.  

There’s a save file on the file select menu that already has progress in it. At any time, you can pull out of the game and look at the game’s manual, which has scribbles from its former owner.  The more you play, the more you begin to realize this game is haunted by its former owner. As you play and as you do these runs, you’re going to get a little bit more of that story as the game gets a little more spooky and haunted. It’s a unique twist on the genre.  

Eddie: While I was playing the game and talking about it, I noticed the game has this Sega Saturn, Treasure game inspiration with a little bit of CRT to it. I was talking to one of the helpers here. He said, you guys built that filter from the ground up. Was that something that you wanted to do to make the game feel a little bit more authentic? 

Alex: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’m a big retro gamer at heart, and it was important for me. People of a certain age can all tell and remember that era of gaming, and we want to do our best to capture that feeling, especially because of the game’s story. So, yeah, it was really important to me that we built it from scratch. 

I also know there are a lot of games with really bad CRT filters, and it always bothers me. So we wanted to create something scalable as well. Especially if you play this game in 4K and you actually look up close at the screen, you can see the red, green, and blue parts of the Aperture Grill and stuff. So yeah, we were passionate about the stuff. Really passionate.

Eddie: I know with the gameplay, it contains a simple light and heavy attack that creates combos by mixing the buttons up.  Was that something that you were thinking of, so it would be one single attack, and this will allow the player the ability to mix up the attacks? Is that something that you feel like elevates the beat ’em up genre?

Alex: It can elevate beat-em-up games. I think you have to be careful. If you have too many attacks and the player is too powerful, then a beat-em-up can become kind of boring. At the same time, if the character only has one attack, then it’s also not terribly exciting for a lot of people. What’s important for us is that the different attacks that you have are meaningfully different, as in you have a reason to think, I want to use my heavy attack instead of my light attack, or I want to cast a spell, or I want to dodge. If it’s meaningful to the player,  then it’s useful to them. That’s the way I see it.

Eddie: How long has the game development been going on for Dungeon Lurker? 

Alex: So far so good. We’ve been working on it for about eleven months. It’s been pretty good, pretty smooth. We’re a team that’s been working together for a while, which helps. So we’re pretty in tune with one another. It’s been really great working on a game with Pixel Art. I love Pixel Art. This game is the right time to finally do that. Our previous games weren’t Pixel Art.

Eddie: I gotta ask, how has the playtesting within the team been going? Have you guys been having a ball? Have you guys been screaming “no!” in play sessions?  Has it been exciting with the playtesting? 

Alex: Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s always fun. It’s always fun. Whenever our designer creates something new, getting to test it out first is always really funny. Sometimes it’s too easy, and I’ll go in there and destroy it immediately, and he’ll be like, “Ah shit, I gotta redo this.” Sometimes it’ll be too hard, and he’ll just sit there laughing and laughing and laughing. That’s a big part of the fun: playing it, sharing it, talking about it. Of course, we shared the demo on Steam. We had a lot of people check it out, and it’s been amazing. The feedback’s been really positive, so we’re really happy about it.

Eddie: While developing the game, have you had the “I’m asleep but here’s the dream idea” kind of thing and you wake up and you got to write it down and stuff like that? 

Alex: Tons of times. I’ve got a note on my phone called my Dungeon Lurker scratch pad, and it’s just filled. Anytime I think of an idea, whether I’m in the shower, I’m having a dream, or I’m driving, I gotta pull over and quickly punch it in and then keep going. 

Eddie: Have you ever heard, for example, a Reddit story and been like, “Oh, this might be a good idea for a part of the game.” Something that you could take from it or just something weird that could influence the game. 

Alex: I can’t think of one necessarily from Reddit. As I experience other pieces of art or talk to people, especially about the retro games that they used to play, it really fuels a lot of what I think about. A lot of it just comes from my personal experience. A lot of it comes from me and my life and what I experience. 

 Eddie: With the music, what style of music are you going for for this game? 

Alex: So we’re working with a composer, name is Sean Bailo. Really great guy, really talented guy. So there’s a fake game console that this game is made for called the Eclipse System 32, and it’s a console that we would see coming out around the time of maybe the 32X, PlayStation 1, Saturn era. It’s cartridge-based, and we want it to be Chiptune-y without being 16-bit. 

So what he’s doing is he’s pulling from a lot of Capcom Q sound, and like what they were doing more in the arcades at the time. So it still got that crunchy feel to it. 

Eddie: You mentioned Capcom Q sound because you used to see that everywhere for their games. Now you go for that feel and that sound, and I’m like, “Oh yeah, he’s retro,” because if you mentioned that,  you’re an old-school player. 

I just got two more questions for you.  They’re not gonna be hard, just fun. I’m doing a project called The Beauty of Video Games: Personal Interest, and it’s about games that you personally love that are interesting to you. You found beauty in it that others may not find.  Maybe at a time in your life that game helped you. Is there a game or some form of media that would mean something to you that others may not find beautiful or may not understand why you found beauty in it? 

Alex: Yeah, so the story behind this game is that I had a friend growing up. We used to play games together all the time. After high school, he passed away, unfortunately. We had already moved to different cities, but you know, I got the news. When I went back home to visit my parents, I was digging through my old game consoles, and I found that his save data was still in those games. That’s what inspired Dungeon Lurker.  

That same friend, at one of my birthdays when I was a kid, gave me a game for Super Nintendo.  It’s called Magic Sword. It’s a Capcom game. I love that game.  You’re climbing a tower. In our game, you’re descending into a dungeon. It’s very arcadey. It’s filled with secrets. It’s super fun. It’s got really action-based gameplay, but a fantasy aesthetic. It had a huge impact on Dungeon Lurker.  Recently, I finally sat down, and I got the one-credit clear in the game—the no-death clear.

Eddie:  Shout out to you! 

Alex: Yeah, so that’s a game that I don’t hear people talk about at all, even though it’s Capcom. I love it. I love that game.

Eddie: You want to know why? It’s because of Dungeons and Dragons, the two games that Capcom made. I don’t know if Magic Sword was an arcade game. 

Alex: It did have an arcade version.

Eddie: It did have one? okay! I think what happened with that one was that, for me, it came out on Super Nintendo, and I never saw the arcade game, but I knew it was Capcom. The moment you mentioned it, I remembered this game.

Alex: The Super Nintendo version is actually pretty good. I actually like the music in the Super Nintendo version better than the arcade  Super Nintendo music, everybody. That’s why it’s still classic today.  

Eddie: My last question is, what is your go-to snack? Maybe it’s the weekend. You’re off, and you need a snack, or your favorite meal, or is there a snack that we don’t know that we should try out.

Alex: I’ll say this, man, normally I’m trying to eat reasonably healthy. I try not to snack too much, but if I’m going to snack, since my family, on my father’s side, we’re from Egypt,I have a love for dates. What I like to do is to take a date, open it up, pull out the pit, and I like to stick maybe an almond or a walnut inside and a little peanut butter. It tastes almost like eating a turtle. If it had chocolate on it, it would taste like a turtle. It’s so good. You know, in the afternoon I’m kind of low on energy, and I need something, and a date with some peanut butter and a nut would energize me. So good, so good.

Eddie:  That sounds so good. Where can people find you? How can they learn more about Dungeon Lurker? 

Alex: So there is our website 13amgames.com. There’s DungeonLurker.com. Check out the website. It’s really neat. We did it up like a 90s Geo City website. We’re on social media: we’re on Instagram, Dungeon Lurker Game, we’re on Twitter, Blue Sky, and Facebook, and we’re even on TikTok.

If you’re interested in the game, check it out on Steam, wishlist it, and we’ve also got a Discord as well, and you can access it all from our website. 

Eddie: Everybody, the demo is available on Steam. Download it. Give this game a try.  Give these guys that wish list. Hit that button because this game is amazing. It’s gonna take you back if you are a 90s kid or into 90’s pop culture. This modern retro style game is gonna have you hooked and everything. Thank you again, Alex, for the demo and this interview.

Alex: Thank you so much. 

You can wishlist this game right here.

Featured Image: 13AM Games