UNEXPECTED: discover the soul of Brazilian indie

UNEXPECTED is a metroidvania created by Brazilians Tiani Pixel and Fernanda Diaz of the independent Pixel Punk studio. With an average of 86 on Metacritic (in PC versions Nintendo switch and Xbox One), the game is a hit in Brazil and around the world. The game brings innovative mechanics and captivating storytelling to the genre.

O Canaltech talked to two developers UNEXPECTED to understand a little more about the gameplay and below are more details on this amazing Brazilian indie game.

System crash, someone misconfigured me

First, let’s talk about the context in which everything happens.

In a dystopian future, only androids circle the Earth. They are called automata and are equipped with Anima, a substance that guarantees their survival. However, if not consumed regularly, robots become Blind and begin to hunt for other synthetic products in order to survive.

In this scenario, we control Alma, a robot who wakes up in a laboratory with no memory of his past. Gradually, her memories return to her, and she recalls Rachel, her long-standing passion, which must be rediscovered at all costs.

Moving a little forward in the plot, we discover a key moment, which is one of the highlights. UNEXPECTED: time. Due to the lack of Anima, the characters have several days and hours to live (some have more than 100 hours, others have a little less than 10 hours). If the player lasts too long in the main storyline, some favorite NPCs (non-player characters) can turn into evil creatures.

The adventure can still find Meteorite Dust, an item that increases the lifespan of Automata by 24 hours. There isn’t much of this feature, however, and sometimes you’ll have to choose between keeping one Android over the other.

To save all the robots and avoid the destruction of Arcadia, Alma must explore the region and defeat bosses in order to advance the story.

Screw and fluid instead of articulation

Finding every corner of the place, the player will find chips to improve various skills. Not everything can be used, and you need to manage what matters most. This way, you can play with the items that best suit your playstyle – which I especially love.

The combat is also great, with multiple attack forms thanks to swords and firearms that allow you to dodge when surrounded and even block enemy attacks at the last minute (which gives you even stronger bounces). The game has a system craft create weapon designs and upgrade them from collected items.

With all these possibilities, you can get different experiences, making some bosses easier than you might imagine, but also putting the player in some difficult situations.

Nothing organic, everything is programmed

“We are very transparent in our inspirations. We created a game that has our interpretation of elements from several others that inspire us, such as the series. Zelda, Metroid e Dark souls“, – said Tiani and Fernanda in a joint response to Canaltechwhen asked about their inspiration.

The developers also explain that the idea was not born out of a desire to create metroidvania, but because of the choice of mechanics and style, UNEXPECTED eventually entered this genre.

Like life, play is about “making many decisions and living with the consequences of those decisions. The whole game is built around this concept. The person who plays will have to make choices all the time, and it has mechanical and narrative consequences, ”the duo emphasizes.

In the process of making film, music and video games, most of each artist is transferred to work, and in UNEXPECTED this was no exception. “Some of our values, our outlook on things are reflected in the game. The great aspect is hope in the face of adversity: in our game you can always play again and do better, help more people and do more good in the world, ”the creators say.

Reinstall the system

Like the studios that make high-budget games (and the world at large), Pixel Punk also faced development challenges during the covid-19 pandemic. According to Fernanda and Tiani, due to the virus and social isolation, this affected their psychological state and “had a lot of impact on the production of the game.”

The weeks of the release period were also hectic, with constant work on fixing bugs and other technical bugs, as well as managing social media and other pages.

Guess who woke up rated “Extremely Positive” on Steam! Thanks everyone for playing UNSIGHTED!

The post-launch brought its well-deserved laurels. “The feedback from the players has been amazing, it’s really great to see so many people play the game, discovering all the details that we put so much into.” However, developers are critical of the industry as a whole. “The game had a lot of ramifications, but it is still a little frustrating compared to the performances, which are getting a lot more media attention,” they say.

Are they coming again?

Every time a game comes out, part of the community is hungry for additional content. Stories from other characters, more quests, items, and so on. For UNEXPECTED, two developers very accurately answer this possibility: “not yet, but in the future, who knows.”

unfortunately so many UNEXPECTED how many Bouncer academy, two great Brazilian indies from 2021, awards were removed from the game, the biggest award in the industry and that O Canaltech is a member of the jury… In November 2021, Tiani and Fernanda’s game won the (well-deserved) award for Excellence in Narrative (Narrative Excellence, Free Translation) at the Latinx Games Festival.

We are honored to receive this award from @LatinxGamesFest! Thanks to everyone, and special thanks to Amelia Molino for her tremendous help with writing UNSIGHTED!

UNEXPECTED available for PC, Playstation 4, Nintendo switch e Xbox one and also a part of Game Pass, thanks partnership between distributor Humble Games and Microsoft…