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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: NemoTheCaptain

Turn the fantasy world conceived at the age of 8 into a game.

Sabotage Studios, based in Quebec City, Canada, has launched only two games: messenger, an action game released in 2018. On the face of it, it is a simple 8-bit style "Ninja Dragon Sword" tribute, but the game suddenly introduced 16-bit screen and "Galaxy City" to explore the way to play in the middle of the process. On August 30 this year, "Sea of Stars" was launched, which combines modern 3D technology such as day and night light and shadow with 2D pixel images, showing a retro and trendy picture.

This is the unique style of Sabotage-more complex images, techniques, or games are often hidden beneath seemingly simple pictures.

Thierry Thierry Boulanger, the founder of Sabotage, has been conceiving the fantasy world of Messenger and Sea of Stars since he was 8 years old. His childhood dream was to turn the world in his heart into a game. After a decadent adolescence, Thierry finally turned into a prodigal son and became a game director, turning his childhood dream into reality. This tortuous way of mind was finally written into the plot of "Messenger".

Grandfather's Treasure Thierry Bronge was born in Quebec City, Canada in 1985. He has a brother who is two years older. When Thierry was 3 years old, his parents bought a NES (North American version of FC) to celebrate his brother's birthday, and Thierry fell in love with video games under the influence of his brother. For a long time, however, they had only two NES tapes at home: Super Mario Brothers and a baseball game. Thierry hates all sports games, so he can only play Super Mario Brothers.

Thierry Blange, 3, watched his 5-year-old brother turn up on a computer when Thierry was 7 years old. On an otherwise mundane day, Thierry's grandfather suddenly went to visit his beloved grandson with a large paper bag stuffed with NES tapes. Mother was puzzled by this. It was neither Thierry's birthday nor Christmas, so why give him a big bag of cards? Because of Thierry's poor grades in primary school, his mother was afraid of affecting her studies, so she asked her grandfather to take these cards back, but under Thierry's soft and hard bubbles, her mother finally gave in and allowed him to keep six cards from them.

Thierry, who knew almost nothing about the game at the time, spent the afternoon plugging each card into the NES and roughly divided it into three categories: "like", "dislike" and "uncertain". In retrospect, Thierry admired his grandfather's vision very much, and the paper bags were full of classic games: Super Contra, final Fantasy, Galactic Warrior, warm Blood Story, Locke Man 2, Ninja Turtle 3, Batman, Super Star Wars, and Katie. This stack of cassettes is enough to make all NES players salivate.

After choosing the first five tapes, Thierry faces the final choice: "Ninja Dragon Sword 2" or "Devil City 3". For a 7-year-old, both games were a bit scary and were classified as "uncertain" by him at the time. After some comparison, Thierry chose the Legend of Ninja Dragon Sword 2, and eventually this card became a classic that influenced his life. Thierry is now sighing about this, and if he chose "Alcatraz 3", then the "messenger" probably would not exist.

The difficulty of "Ninja Dragon Sword 2" saved by Thierry until now is by no means friendly to a 7-year-old, but its super quality holds on to Thierry like a magnet. He even asked his parents to buy himself an alarm clock so that he could get up early and play games a little longer. Although the difficulty of the game is high, players can still feel the sense of ease after being familiar with the process. after countless trials, Thierry finally broke through the game, and his unparalleled sense of achievement is still fresh in his memory.

Exquisite and dignified picture, exquisite level design, passionate soundtrack. With these advantages alone, Ninja Dragon Sword 2 is enough to become a textbook for action games. What's even more amazing is that the film unexpectedly crammed rich plot illustrations and ups and downs into a small cassette, opening the door to a new world for Thierry.

Thierry, who is still in the process of thinking, will play all three of NES's "Ninja Dragon Sword" series very well, but his favorite is the second generation. Customs clearance is just the beginning for him, and he has come up with similar ideas in an era when alternative express has not yet become a trend. He tried not to destroy any miscellaneous soldiers and passed the first level of "Ninja Dragon Sword 2". After accomplishing this goal, he continued to try the second level. Every week, Thierry will pass through the "Ninja Dragon Sword 2", a habit he has maintained for 20 years. He is not a nostalgic professional, nor does he reject the latest HD 3D masterpieces, but he has even spent as much time on NES as PS4 in recent years.

Thierry passed the Ninja Dragon Sword 2 through the baptism of the six cards thousands of times. Thierry, who was in primary school, was inspired by the game. From the age of 8, he conceived a fantasy world called "Solstice Warrior." and communicate with classmates in a way similar to board games. At that time, Thierry played the Sun Warrior in the game, a girl played the Moon Warrior, there were other professions (such as ninjas), and strange enemies came from things in life that made them uncomfortable, such as strong bad classmates. and the monster in the nightmare, the fantasy world eventually became the prototype of Messenger and Sea of Stars.

A similar experience is not uncommon in the gaming world. Talented writer Eddard Greenwood began to conceive of forgotten Nation at the age of 4, which was later incorporated by Dungeons and Dragons, providing the basis for classic series such as Baird's Gate. Thierry admitted that he did not have the ability to become a novel writer, and his fantasy world was not rigorous, but just wishful thinking in his childhood.

When the prodigal son returned to primary school, Thierry dreamed of becoming a game developer when he grew up, but after entering middle school, his poor grades still did not improve. This is not a simple weariness of learning, Thierry was diagnosed with ADHD, he felt that he could not study computer science in college, and once gave up his dream of developing games. Later, he took a cooking class and worked in a restaurant, but in the end a chef said he was not fit for further study in the industry. He was at a loss.

Fortunately, Thierry has a cheerful personality and made a lot of friends in high school, some of them are friends in the game, and the other is the partner of the band. He played drums in a punk band for seven years, and his state of mind was slightly improved by the charm of the music and the enthusiasm of the band, but he did not regard the band as a career.

Thierry played drums in the band from 2005 to the spring of 2007, Thierry fell into the most decadent state: although he had a job income, but because his career was not ideal and lack of motivation, he devoted most of his energy to games, including both console games and PC games. It was the golden age of World of Warcraft, and Thierry spent thousands of hours in the game, almost unable to extricate himself.

The turnaround came in the summer of 2007, when Bart Private College in Quebec City opened an one-year game programming major. Thierry decided to say goodbye to his decadent life and return to his dream of developing games. The first month of homework is a simple Flash Mini Game, Thierry made a rough called "extremely Black Night", in which you can vaguely see the shadow of "messenger".

Flash Mini Game "extremely Black Night" in the academy, Thierry demonstrated unexpected programming skills. In February 2008, before the end of the one-year course, Thierry was hired by Frima Game Studio in Quebec City. A few years later, he had become the lead programmer for the 40-member team, but he was not satisfied with the job either.

Frima is an outsourcing company specializing in animation games. Thierry's works are mostly mobile games and page games, which is far from his ideal. In fact, Frima has also recruited some excellent console game developers, such as Philip Downey, who designed levels for Ubisoft Prince of Persia: heart of the Warriors and Prince of Persia: unparalleled King. Thierry and Philip met at Frima in 2012. Thierry always wanted to turn from programmer to planner, and Philip thought he had the potential.

Senior planner Philip Downey released the Shovel Knight in 2014, and its success proves that pixel games are invincible in the HD era. Encouraged by this, Thierry submitted the proposal of Messenger to his boss, and the boss replied: "this is not a work that Frima will develop, and there is no creativity. You will never be a planner. Be an honest programmer." At this point, Thierry realized that Frima had no room for games like Messenger, and he had to do it himself, looking for developers who also love pixel games to prepare for the new company. Before that, he had been developing "messengers" in his personal time.

At this time, Michael Lavoy (Michael Lavoie), an artist at Frima, was developing a RPG called Sarcia. Michael, who has both 2D and 3D art skills, tries to incorporate the common special effects of 3D games into 2D images, and Sarcia's Bloom effects and dynamic lighting enhance the hierarchy of the scene. Thierry believes that Michael's art level is remarkable, and although the development of "Sarcia" was suspended in 2017, its lighting effect was carried forward by Messenger.

Michael Lavoy has both 2D and 3D art skills.

As the floodlight special effects of "Sarcia" enter 2015, the development of "Messenger" is beginning to take shape, with Thierry in charge of programming and action design and Philip in charge of the checkpoint. In the early days, the pair focused on the feel and rhythm of the level, had no time for art, and the picture was still in black and white, and later Michael drew some temporary color pixel characters for them.

Thierry was also looking for a soundtrack for Messenger when he found a weirdo named Eric Brown on the Internet. As an electronic music lover, Eric uses the antique handheld Game Boy as his musical instrument, a nostalgic style that meets the needs of Messenger. Eric met Thierry for the first time when he performed in Quebec City in 2015, and the composer of the Messenger was settled.

The early black-and-white screen version of the Messenger

E-music geek Eric Brown had another surprise for Thierry in 2015, when Oddworld Studios was developing a replica of the classic action game Strange World: the Soul Storm, and Oddworld outsourced some of its art and programming work to Frima because it was understaffed. Thierry himself is a loyal player of the Strange World series, and this outsourcing has taught him a lot of valuable experience.

Thierry has initially collected the talent needed to develop Messenger, but he knows next to nothing about running the company and needs a professional producer to back it up. He found Martin Broder (Martin Brouard), who had many years of management experience at Frima, although the two had never worked on the same project. Thierry presented the early version of Messenger to Martin and got good feedback, and Martin agreed to leave Frima to start a new company with Thierry.

The exquisite picture of Strange World: the Storm of Soul

The new company of Martin Broder Monkey, the producer of Messenger, was originally called Nightshroud and later became Sabotage. Thierry, whose mother tongue is French, hopes to find the same word as the company name in French and English. Out of his love of punk music, he thought of the Beast Boys' 1994 classic "Sabotage". The company's Logo is a monkey, which is a parody of Frima, the old employer. Thierry says that big companies like Frima don't value developers, and their bosses think their employees' work is like screwing, and another monkey can do it, so Sabotage is a company made up of "monkeys." In April 2016, Sabotage Studio was officially established, and several "monkeys" who left Frima gave their future to the "messenger".

Thierry originally conceived of "Messenger" only eight style pictures, friends warned him, imitating "Ninja Dragon Sword" 2D independent games are too many, non-featured works can not stand out, Thierry laid a big foreshadowing for the game. Messenger is an 8-bit linear action game at the beginning of the process, but suddenly introduces 16-bit screen and Galaxy City-style exploration elements in the middle of the process, and the soundtrack is also available in 8-bit and 16-bit versions.

A concise 8-bit picture

In October 2016, Martin flew to Seattle with a messenger to show off to platform operators such as Nintendo, Microsoft and Valve. In November 2017, Messenger won the award for best game design and best score at the Montreal Independent Games Festival in Canada. However, Messenger's trial popularity in this event was significantly lower than Thierry expected.

Thierry had hoped to surprise players by hiding the 16-bit screen and the foreshadowing of Galaxy City after the game was released. Now he has to change his strategy-if the foreshadowing is not made public in advance, players will not see the most important features of Messenger, they may not buy games, and nothing can be said about it. Thierry had to compromise by adding 16-bit images to the trailer that was released to the world in January 2018.

In May 2018, Martin and Thierry flew to Kyoto, Japan to attend the Bit Summit Independent Games Exhibition, an experience they will never forget. Messenger offered a trial at the exhibition, and Martin and Thierry went out for lunch when someone suddenly sent a message to them: Hideo Yoizawa, the planner of the FC version of the Ninja Dragon Sword, and composer Masaji Yamashi are trying out Messenger! The two hurried back to the booth, and after a few pleasantries, the two Japanese game masters offered to take a group photo.

From left to right: Martin Broud, Yamashi Jiji, Yoshizawa Hideo, and Thierry Bronge recalled afterwards. Yoshizawa Hideo and Yamashi Hideji said that they saw the game "Messenger" on the news website and came to the audition out of curiosity. I think the game is good. Thierry confessed that he was trying to control his emotions during the group photo, and after the photo, he went to the bathroom and cried for 15 minutes. Thierry regards the two masters as eternal heroes, and their affirmation is more important than any award at any game festival. Yamanji finally wrote two songs for Messenger, but it was not included in the game because of time.

You can see the shadow of all kinds of classic games in Messenger: the basic action is similar to the Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword, the idea of two consecutive jumps using air attacks comes from the Shovel Knight, and the exploration elements refer to the Galactic Warrior. all kinds of humorous conversations imitate "Monkey Island Little Hero".... Thierry admits that an action game doesn't need so much dialogue, and players can press it.

Although the shape of the protagonist in Messenger is the same as that of Falcon in the Legend of Ninja Dragon Sword, the personalities of the two are quite different. The plot style of "Messenger" is closer to that of Deadpool, and the protagonists and supporting characters are a group of funny characters. In Thierry's eyes, Falcon's traditional ninja look is only a professional symbol, not every ninja is serious, funny characters can also wear that dark mask.

In the funny dialogue in Messenger, the miscellaneous soldiers of the Legend of Ninja Dragon Sword will be infinitely refreshed when the camera moves. Messenger deliberately retains this design, but the resurrection mechanism is more relaxed. The protagonist can be resurrected directly at the checkpoint in the middle of the checkpoint, and as a price, a little devil will appear on the screen and devour the gold coins along the way within 1 minute after the resurrection. In the Boss war phase, the imps will simply disappear, reducing the cost of players repeatedly challenging Boss, these designs lower the threshold of the game.

Messenger debuted on PC and Switch on August 29, 2018, which was not a good time. The PS4 version of Marvel Spider-Man went on sale on September 7 of the same year, and the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the Wild Dart: redemption 2 went on sale on October 26. From the perspective of the launch platform, these two masterpieces do not have a direct impact on Messenger, but multi-platform players with limited time are likely to ignore Messenger. In fact, the development team had planned to release Messenger in July, as far away from the two masterpieces as possible, when the team had two options: either delete a lot of content to release ahead of time, or work crazy overtime in the last few months. The team chose the latter, but did not fully achieve its goal-after six months of overtime, the release date of the game was still more than a month late and crashed with the blockbusters.

On PC and Switch, Messenger sold about 50, 000 in its first week, a good figure for the new company's debut, but not a good performance in independent games over the same period. Thierry found that many players put "courier" on the Steam wish list, maybe they are just waiting for a discount.

Messenger updated the multi-weekly model on November 21, 2018, in which the protagonist must pay gold coins in order to be resurrected, otherwise directly Game Over. The more times players go through customs, the more gold coins are needed for resurrection, and the stronger the enemy is. After that, Sabotage migrated Messenger to other platforms, and the PS4 version was released on March 19, 2019.

Messenger launched a free DLC "panic picnic" (Picnic Panic) on July 11, 2019. Players need to go through customs to enter the DLC, which is more difficult than the ontology. Thierry initially planned to launch three similar styles of free DLC to boost ontology sales, but the response to "panic picnic" was still lower than expected. Thierry reflected on the need for more difficult updates and finally decided to stop there.

After the update of the difficult free DLC "panic picnic" and "panic picnic", six of Sabotage's 16-member team participated in the development of Strange World: soul Storm in the form of outsourcing, which Thierry had previously poached from his former employer, Frima, so that he could earn some outsourcing fees from Oddworld, the client, to support Sabotage's operations. However, "Strange World: storm of Soul" has been postponed many times until 2021, and Thierry has no time to wait any longer. In the end, Sabotage ended its outsourcing business in August 2019, leaving only one person in charge of developing the Xbox One version of Messenger, while all 15 others turned to the Sea of Stars.

The Xbox One version of Messenger was released on June 25, 2020 and synchronized into the XGP subscription library. At this point, the development work of this work is completed. With repeated discounts, Messenger finally sold 1 million copies in 2023. After that, Sabotage spent all of Messenger's revenue on the Sea of Stars, through which Thierry turned his 8-year-old fantasy world into an action game. This time, he wants to make another bet on RPG.

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