Creating the Bahnsen Knights Universe – A Love Letter to Previous-Faculty Games and Pulps

• LCB Sport Studio’s third Pixel Pulp, is out now on Xbox.
• Distinctive interactive fiction expertise merging twentieth-century ‘Pulps’ with 80s sport aesthetics.
• A charming fusion of undercover cop drama, supernatural beliefs, and twister-chasing street journeys.

Bahnsen Knights is the third Pixel Pulp launched by LCB Sport Studio. A Pixel Pulp is our personal manner of understanding interactive fiction, attempting to deliver collectively two distant components akin to the style narratives of the early twentieth century— the so-known as ‘Pulps’—and the laptop video games of the 80s, with their restricted palettes and with a complete historical past of potentialities forward as a medium.

However what we time period “Pixel Pulps” will not be mere nostalgia; it’s a glimpse right into a previous which may have been.

Historical past of Bahnsen Knights

In Bahnsen Knights, gamers assume the position of Boulder, investigating the disappearance of a fellow Company member by infiltrating the Bahnsen Knights—a cult led by Toni, a former used automotive salesman. Toni believes that hell is above us, and tornadoes are the satan’s doing. Along with his Bahnsen Knights, Toni drives his Sierra to conduct ‘street exorcisms’, as a manner to battle F5 tornadoes.

As with all Pixel Pulps, Bahnsen Knights goals to craft a gripping narrative expertise harking back to tales revealed in pulp magazines from the first half of the twentieth Century—tales that refuse to launch their grip on readers.

Artwork of Bahnsen Knights

The start line was the shade palette of the ZX Spectrum console, restricted to six colours plus black and white with two ranges of brightness. Though the palette may be strident when utilized in its entirety, that is a part of its allure and nostalgia.

To create distinct identities for every sport, we decreased the palette to a few colours for every Pixel Pulp. Drawing parallels with journal printing methods—mixing small dots of two colours to create the phantasm of a 3rd shade—we aimed to obtain this impact.

In Bahnsen Knights, centered round an undercover cop, saturating all the pieces in pink felt acceptable, making a steady sense of alertness. Combining it with magenta offers the visuals a vibrant neon 80s high quality that enhances the story completely.

Enter in Bahnsen Knights

Our Pixel Pulps use a selection-based mostly enter system, extending past select-your-personal-journey choices to management mini-video games. In Bahnsen Knights, that is no totally different. This method not solely aligns with sure sport genres we love but additionally permits us to experiment with sport design components akin to time, muscle reminiscence, and reflexes. And like our different Pixel Pulps, Bahnsen Knights features a variant of a solitaire we designed… Cross Solitaire!

Time in Bahnsen Knights

Time is an important aspect that enhances the gripping nature of the story. As an infiltrated agent, Boulder is at all times on the verge of discovery, leaving no room for relaxation.

Experimenting with fast-time occasions, counters, and different sport design assets, we purpose to break the passivity of studying an interactive fiction, the place time is normally on the participant’s facet—one in every of the achievements of the sport has to do with this, particularly with the studying time… are you able to unlock it?

What Might Have Been and What Is likely to be

Our Pixel Pulps – rooted in pulp-like narratives, pixel aesthetics harking back to a Eighties which may have been, and a management system that enables itself to experiment as if the online game trade hadn’t already calcified some design practices – are usually not merchandise of a previous we yearn for, however of a previous but to come. We hope you take pleasure in discovering this little universe of ours!

---