How Two Students Created Risk of Rain and Why They Sold the IP Rights
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
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This Risk of Rain documentary details the development of indie 2D pixel art action platformer Risk of Rain and 3D roguelike shooter Risk of Rain 2 and goes behind the scenes of their creation. Discover more about developer Hopoo Games and its two founders, Duncan Drummond and Paul Morse. Risk of Rain’s development journey goes all the way back to 2012, when Duncan and Paul embarked on a university project focused on programming. In the game's initial prototype, players defended their crashed ship from an onslaught of monsters, and straying further from the ship would increase the difficulty. This concept eventually transformed into the “time = difficulty” system and gave Risk of Rain its own identity. The documentary also explores all the design decisions that Hopoo Games made and shows how much the team experimented with the game’s difficulty, especially when it comes to how enemies scale in power. Additionally, they had to come up with a clever solution when the enemy spawn AI started spawning way too many monsters on the battlefield and caused performance issues.
It also takes a close look at all the hurdles the team had to go through. Going from a 2D pixel art action platformer to a 3D roguelike shooter presented many challenges, mainly because neither Duncan or Paul had any experience creating 3D models, let alone other technical nuances that came with designing a 3D game. They soon discovered that they couldn't directly adapt any of the original gameplay elements into the sequel. Therefore, every class and monster taken from the original had to undergo substantial revisions. Furthermore, the documentary also provided insight into the deal made between Hopoo Games and Gearbox and why Duncan and Paul sold the rights to the Risk of Rain IP. Lastly, Duncan and Paul share their thoughts on the recently announced remake Risk of Rain Returns and what’s next for them and their game development studio.
0:00 Part 1
5:21 Ad
6:27 Part 2
References:
thatguyglen.fun/video/how-2-s...
Outro song: Thank You R.G.E. - Joe Bagale
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#RiskOfRain #HopooGames #GameDevelopment - เกม
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raycons are worse than most wired earbuds tbh
8:56 there's more to the story, which Chris explains in one of his Q&A videos. after agreeing to make music, Hopoo was still on the fence about what composer to hire on. initially they wanted several composers for variety. Chris instead emails Hopoo saying something along the lines of "Hey, I'm willing to do all the music, but you have to act fast because I have several job offers right now." he was bluffing, and Hopoo bought the bluff.
bro outplayed them and it was the best bluff ever to exist
Thank god he lied to them
Well hot damn… a fantastic composer and a smart business man.
Never heard this story before. Thanks for sharing!
best instance of fraud to ever exist
And thank goodness he did that, I can't imagine the series having any other lead composer
The decision to get Chris involved on the soundtrack was so important. He is to Hopoo what Darren Korb is to Supergiant 🔥
The worst part about that is the fact that now that gearbox owns the risk of rain IP, I'm pretty sure Chris said that he's done with the franchise.
Chris is the GOAT
Giving Chris almost free reign was also like, one of the best ideas ever.
@@huntish3760 wait for real?
@@huntish3760 he is still doing the music for risk of rain returns, but after that, all of hopoo is finished with the RoR franchise
its absurd that such a small team made this masterpiece. especially considering the music was just made by one guy? Its fucking perfect
Chris Christodoulou does not miss.
I remember when I first saw the second one was 3d, and I was like, "eehhhh Idk man, it's so good as 2d." And then I got it on a whim and they did it again! So hyped to see what they do next
'masterpiece' lmao
@@OrgusDin You are correct in calling them masterpieces.
Touhou
Risk of rain is a game that I enjoy every month for a few hours with my friends.
same lol
I wish I could say the same on console (ps5), however idk if it's due to their servers but my mates & I get random disconnects and can't play longer than 40mins+ because everyone gets thrown back to the title screen. I really hope they come out with that 'Survivors of The Void' update that overhauls the game for us on console. I really love this game and I WANT to keep playing it, but it's just not as much fun playing alone..
@tobiasrex8052 risk of rain net code is very janky even on PC latest update. Enable steam/epic cross play completely breaks multi-player still now. So your not alone
One of my favorite games of all time. It's shocking to me how adept they were at programming and rapid iteration that they finished the first game as quickly as they did.
It's always interesting to see how games that hold titles of having incredible narratives, soundtrack, visual style, and unique gameplay are the result of some guys going "wouldn't it be cool if..."
Returns is being developed entirely in-house at Hopoo Games and was in development for years before the sale of the IP was fully considered or finalized. That said, it is published by Gearbox and so we have support for marketing, QA etc and obviously they're excited to be able to present our love letter to you all as well.
Is this a quote (?), or is your use of “we” referring to the community? I’m just confused on the context of your comment.
@@ViKODiN_ Just a real use of the word! I work on the game, you can find me in the credits of Risk 2 and Returns haha
Nice! Didn't expect this one, but as they say: "A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one!" Good job once again, research and editing is really good.
Much appreciated!
Been a Hopoo fan ever since RoR1's launch, so I can't wait to see what the future holds for them
The future holds for them a Risk of Rain 1 Remake :)
@@Landjrin they're not the ones making it, smartass
dont you have a phone?
Risk of Rain Returns:
Yessss one of my favorite games ever!! I remember buying Risk of Rain 2 in early access and playing a bit of it, but it wasn't until 1.0 that I became absolutely obsessed with the game. Something about it just always grabs me back, and even after 2 years I still haven't gotten tired of it; especially with the modding community and DLC update. Such a fun and special game to me
This was such a great video!! Especially loved seeing all the unused content; and as someone who's played only a bit of ROR1, it was cool to see where it began!
Thank you very much, makes me happy to hear you liked it!
Thank you for making another one of these amazing, interesting and useful videos. The summary of every point, listing every important detail and portraying the creators thoughts and emotions shows how dedicated you are. Every single minute of the video has high levels and research. I truly thank you for these videos and I hope you can continue to post videos in the future.
My pleasure and thank you very much for all the kind words! And no worries, more videos are coming!
@@ThatGuyGlendo ya like the ori games? The first one is ok to me but the sequel is soooooo much better
I remember playing the original Risk of Rain many years back on the ps4. Me, my dad, and a couple of my friends frequently enjoyed it for a long while. A few years later, I was browsing games on the ps store and found Risk of Rain 2. It was so exciting to see that they made a sequel to a game that I had already enjoyed so much. It's sad to see the harsh treatment RoR2 has been receiving when it comes to the console editions, but it is still a legendary game. I love playing games like this made by small teams, and seeing how it all happened.
Oh yeah the console version is terrible. It’s so broken and unfair with many glitches. At least I get the DLC’s on November 8th. I can ignore everything else
Is the console version really that bad? I play on console and haven’t encountered any significant bugs.
Is the console version really that bad? I play on console and haven’t encountered any significant bugs.
It's so interesting to hear about them being concerned if they could translate the first game into a 3D experience, simply because of our future knowledge and how much they knocked it out of the park. I remember seeing a PCGamer article posting the first screenshots they put out and being a bit skeptical, like "there is no way this can end well. where is all the pixel art soul? tsk." I guess 2017 me was a bit of a hater. 😹 It's also interesting to hear that they wanted the game to be singleplayer focused initially, because most of my best memories of the games come from playing the first with my brother couch co-op and the second with friends over calls, discussing builds, trying to break the game with broken synergies.
I'm super glad we got what we did as it turned out to be one of the best roguelikes of all time!
The irony. I thought the pixel art of the first game was boring and uncreative for what pixel can do. Although ror2 used cell shading in a way that wasn’t new it uses a very clever colour pallet to create mood and atmosphere which fully took advantage of the cell shaded style.
I guess the saying goes "Don't knock it before you try it". I always like to think positively about what will happen to things in the future, as well as things going on now. There's too many negative voices out there, protesting against things that are honestly not as bad as people make them out to be...
It’s interesting to note that the hero’s garb set is similar to what the heresy set ended up being.
I remember the chucklefish stuff happening partly live, it was during the JSmith Super Stream (or the 52 hour stream for googling) in April 2013, where as the stream just went on and on without plan, eventually several indie devs (like Mike Bithell of Thomas was alone for example) just came on and talked or played stuff since the NLSS group was pretty in that scene.
Near the end the RoR guys (and someone from Chuckelfish I believe) also came on and they said something to the effect of: "if you win/do good in this run now they are gonna publish this". Obviously the talks were probably already happening or had happened off stream but that was pretty sick.
They also live read Pulp Fiction and Star Wars IV with everyone playing different characters, which included Mike Bithell and later the guy he was supposed to be in a meeting with at that point.
Pretty memorable event for me in that eras indie scene, devs that showed up included:
RoR devs of course (played on stream) (turns out this was during the kickstarter as well!)
Chris Hecker (Spy Party which was quite new at that point) (played on stream with dev)
Mike Maulbeck (Paranautical Activity)
Jim Crawford (Frog Fractions) (played on stream with dev)
MikeBithell (Thomas Was Alone) (played on stream with dev)
David S. Gallant (I Get This Call Every Day)
Rami Ismail of Vlambeer (Luftrausers, Nuclear Throne etc.)
the Chasm dev (played on stream) (forgot the name whoops)
and maybe the Legend of Dungeon dev as well but I'm not sure on that
The Vods still exist and/or are downloadable, the RoR part is on 20h09m25s on the Part 4 twitch vod.
Time to rewatch that whole thing again, what a great time oh man
Excellent mini-doc as always, Glen. Thanks for doing what you do!
My pleasure, glad to hear you liked it Ryan!
Your videos are top-tier, always love to see how you adapt the editing style to each game you decide to cover
Thank you very much! It’s great fun for myself to come up with new ways to edit the videos so I’m glad people like it :D
Stellar video, as usual, Glen! Always look forward to your videos and you've introduced me to so many amazing indie game gems. Keep up the great work, my friend!
Thank you for all the kind words, Brett! And thank you very much for the donations, really really appreciate that! More videos are coming :D
Glad to hear! I listen to a lot of your content on my bike rides then watch later. Your videos have really good flow and editing and you clearly put in a lot of work into research. I first found you when I was playing Stardew Valley and happened upon your video about Eric Barone and the games development. Appreciate your hard work and look forward to more content!
Wonderful video! Always interesting to learn about development in games like this! Especially a game so close to me
23:50 though quick correction, the DLC SoTV was released in March 2022. The anniversary update was the one released in 2021.
Much appreciated! And dammit, mixed up my update dates :P
I can't wait for the remake but I also can't wait to see what new games they bring to the table.
Wow this came at the perfect time for me. I just started playing both games literally yesterday and was already watching this channel.
I'm so in love with this game and super appreciate the development deep-dive! Really great to learn more abt this masterpiece
Glad to hear it!
great video! I didn't know a lot of this about the development of the first game, and it was cool to see the unused sprites.
Thank, glad to hear you liked it!
Thank you for researching and creating this video. The RoR series is my second favorite roguelike, and it's great to see the process that the creators went through
Ur so underrated man! With this amazing content quality you really deserve 10mil by this point. As always, keep up the outstanding work!
Thank you very much for the kind words!
Great video. Very informative and good editing.
I audibly screamed "nnooooOOOOOOOOOO" when I heard Gearbox is taking over the Risk of Rain IP. I honestly couldn't have ever asked for more from Hopoo than what we got in RoR2, so that will be my ultimate experience with the series. Gearbox (and more pressingly Randy Pitchford) will slaughter the soul of this series, I guarantee it. May time prove me wrong in the end but the moment they replace Chris as the composer, take off Commando's helmet, or make Artificer talk, you will know what kind of mistake was made here.
Despite that, much love goes out to Hopoo Games and I'm looking forward to what they can bring out of the ether next.
Chris won't be working on any more RoR content after RoRR, though. He's been working with Hopoo all this time, not with Gearbox
what the fuck are you talking about
that's the most delusional thing I've read all month. Slaughtering the soul? Guarantees? Replacing the composer? Taking off helmets? Giving them voices? _What the fuck are you talking about?_ Where do you think this is all coming from, if not from your own mind????
Lets go another great video! Excited to dive into this one!
Love this new video! I wonder if you could someday make a review on Overcooked 1 and 2, that would be nice
What a episode, such nice story telling and imagery, I'm hard fan of the game seeing some of the art of the items and what they could've looked like was amazing
Glad to hear you enjoyed the video!
Actually, most of the unused content that You see through the video is used, just in a mod called Starstorm, wich is the biggest RoR mod to exist, almost being a RoR 1.5.
If I remember correctly, part of the players that created that mod are now collaboring in the making of RoR returns, but I don't remember where do I readed it.
@@pixavier9746 being used in a mod is not the same thing, im familiar with the mod as I played it myself but I was talking about the ror2 item sprites
@@HallowedPurple oh, faur enough
Looking forward to Risk of Rain 3 in 4D!! Great video btw.
This channel always impresses with the quality it has, I remember when you had way fewer subscribers
I remember those days too! Still can’t quite believe how the channel got here, but I couldn’t be happier.
@@ThatGuyGlen Very well deserved!
Inspiring as always!!
I remember the Early Access days, watching Risk of Rain 2 content creators on youtube min-maxing different build tests, just to give feedback to the devs.
I barely understood all the multipliers & logic in the game on how it all affected certain balancing changes, but it was fascinating to see such a dedicated community to help make the game feel balanced as much as possible.
Great job on the editing for these videos, I hope you can do Cassette Beasts one day.
always enjoy your videos thanks for making them
My pleasure, glad to hear you enjoy them!
Really cool to see you cover risk of ran o7. Love the game. Nice video
Thanks, glad to hear you like it!
i'm from the same game development community as hopoo and the earliest prototype i recall of what became RoR was a kind of 2D tower defense against a basic version of the magma worm. i remember they said the prototype was scrapped because this was one of the versions where the player had no reason to leave their "home". this was ~10 years ago so it'd be hard for me to verify how much of my memory is correct
do a video about the making of vampire survivors!
Vampire Survivors is on my list ;)
Great video, I was really hoping to see some sort of mention for a Risk of rain 3 but since they sold it to gearbox. Who knows what will happen.
I get so excited everytime I see a video from you, amazing as always!
Much appreciated!
I think you shouldve at least mentioned the fact that the game was launched with a big trailer set exactly before the first big official news to borderlands 3 and the last borderlands 2 DLC at PAX east 2019 which was a GIGANTIC boost to popularity and honestly a genius move on gearbox's part in addition to the buy 1 get one free offer. This was a big reason why so many people that would usually not've paid too much attention to the game got hooked into it because everyone was waiting for a cool new looter shooter to play with their friends and guess what? They have to wait a little longer for BL3 but hey here is something to last you until then. I love ROR2 but i think when talking about its success this headstart has to be mentioned
Very interesting! Thanks! Liked and Subscribed!
My pleasure, thank you for subscribing!
Damn!! Another game that's been on my list but never played. Definitely need to get on with it. This sounds awesome!! I love the shift from 2D to 3D!
My favorite gamedev related youtuber making a video on my favorite game
Chris Christodoulou on the music for these games, i dont think ever in the history of gaming, has there ever been a better idea hatched. He absolutely shreds every track he did. especially The song "The Rain" LOVE IT
perfect timing XD as I'm sitting at my desk working on my own roguelike game this video shows up :) about one of my fav roguelikes ever. Thank you o/
My pleasure, good luck with your roguelike game!
When I saw early gifs of this game about 2 years before it’s release. I was already sold. The story behind this game just makes me like it even more.
very good video, thanks for that.
Now ror returns is out and many things announced man this week is a hell of a time to be a risk of rain fan
I still remember when ROR 2 came out with the buy one get 1 for a friend in 2019 early access
4:53 in risk of rain 2 I’ve had so many enemies spawn at once and then immediately die in a triple loop run it heavily lagged my series x. All part of the fun.
Triple loop? Bro I can't even do one loop
@@zieftheknight6061 that was the best loader run I’ve ever had. I had a setup where everything that went near me died instantly through a stupid combo of many ukes, much movement, unstable Tesla and several shaped glass
Awesome video!!
Amazing video Glenn!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Noah, glad you liked it!
You're 🙏welcome
Ok so listen, what if we put Deadbolt in space, but with no doors and skills?
The Risk of Rain 1 and 2 (and Returns now) are easily one of my favorite games in the genre and while I'm sad that now we have a soulless corpo known for bad monetization on their games handling the series, I can only wish the best for Duncan and Paul from now on and that we Chris can keep delivering some of my favorite pieces in gaming soundtrack.
Agreed. Happy for the devs, they deserve their success but I'm sad at what Gearbox apparently has planned for the series. At least we know whatever Hopoo chooses to do next will be an absolute banger
Hopoo moving on kind of worked out well for me and I assume many others, because it means that now I (and I assume I'm not alone in this) are now interested in following Hopoo on their journey and being *Hopoo* fans, instead of just being fans of one single IP.
This explains why sometimes I’ll steamroll a level and get wiped by the boss, and why sometimes it’s the other way around.
These guys are geniuses man
i luv your content, i watched every video of yours!
That’s awesome to hear, glad you like the videos!
i love these videos keep it up!
Glad to hear you enjoy them and more videos are definitely coming!
YAY NEW UPLOAD!
This was a great watch
Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
@@ThatGuyGlen just found your page! I really enjoyed this video, definitely had to subscribe
Awesome, thanks for subscribing and welcome aboard!
fire vid
great editing
Much appreciated!
The success of those three make me so very happy, because Risk of Rain 1 & 2 are my favorite games!
Another game to enjoy and buy this mini documentaries are perfect to get hook on the game
Here after the release of Risk of Rain Returns. Such a phenomenal revitalization of the original, and a monumental milestone signifying how far Hopoo has come. Can’t wait to see what they will do in the future, and I hope Gearbox properly carries on the Risk of Rain IP.
I like how 2 students created risk of rain 2 a game that is so popular and great video man :]
Much appreciated!
@@ThatGuyGlen I love your videos so much man :]
1:30 they were able to identify and deny skill-based match-making better in their first project than cod has in the last decade.
its insane that so many of the mechanics that are so important to ror as a series were Kickstarter goals. makes you wonder ehat the game would've looked like if they just got the 7,000
They also were users of 4chan and risk of rains development was posted on it.
Proof is on the title screen of risk of rain 1.
I will not let you escape your past hoopoo fuck THAT board, you know you're one of us.
Toby Fox too, hardly anyone remembers Undertale being built in /v/.
"Super Fantasy Kingdom" might get interesting for you. Its an Indiegame pretty early in its developement but its got a demo already.
Thanks for subtitles! (Спасибо за субтитры!)
Great video!
Thank you!
I remember keeping the game on a 1 gig thumb drive with a couple other small sized games since it was playable on almost any hardware.
Love all these. Thanks for putting them together
My pleasure!
Risk of Rain is such a fun game and I'm glad I found this video!
Dude, I love this game so much! I bought it to 5 friends of mine to coerce them to play with me.
I love the mistery, the pieces of lore, the soundtrack. Damn what a masterpiece. I felt betrayed by hoopoo when they sold the IP to gearbox though!
Lets be fair too them. They were offered LIFE changing money to be split between 4 people, and they have said that after SotV that they were done with the game. They wanted to move to a different IP, and that money would help A LOT. Anyone would have done it.
@@teddybearkiller1360 Fair enough. Would love to see more characters and stages. Lets hope gearbox keep up the good work.
@@marcosousa4029hopefully gearbox will release survivors of the void on console
I remember seeing RoR2 get announced and thought it was an April fools joke, I couldn't wrap my head around how this incredible sidescroller roguelike would ever work in 3D then RoR2 came out and it's one of the greatest games I've ever played
This is a very interesting video! And what about the history of the creation of the game Ori and the Blind Forest?
Glad to hear that! That one is on my list, although I’m already in the process of covering some other games first :P
@@ThatGuyGlenThanks for the reply. I'll be waiting!
They invited Chris...
...and his music was electric
9:07 then he cooked up the best video game soundtrack ever second to none
Having a lot of fun with the thumbnails and titles i see
A quick question Glen, do you have any criteria on which games you cover on your channel? like: not covering unreleased/early access titles, games you haven't played, maybe not bother with web/flash games?
I only cover games that have been fully released so indeed no early access titles. I’ll probably also never cover flash or mobile games. Most of the time, I’ve played the game I decide to cover, but there’s been exceptions like Among Us for example. Sometimes I decide to cover something like Pokémon because I’m really passionate about it. The most important criteria is that the game simply has an interesting development history.
Great video as always, my only gripe is the raycon sponsor... They're subpar for the price when you take into account that KZ makes IEM's and bluetooth adapters for sub $45... but I know it pays the bills so no biggie
brilliant video! i love risk of rain
the devs are nice people :)
(i hope to see some usage of the woolie interview in here, like the inspiration from... was it league of legends??)
also, to people who dont know RoR too much, the lore is actually surprisingly great and has lots of hidden details despite being... mostly made up on the spot :p
the 2 games have an interesting story they tell together
I was just browsing games and stumbled upon Risk of Rain Returns and as a 2d, rouge-like, metroidvania, platformer player, I immediately fell inlove just after seeing the visuals and the mechanics. A new game to enjoy while also waiting for Silksong hahahaa
This legit makes me want to get back into this. I bought it and only played a few times. Really loved the first game, but the 3D of the second didn't scratch the same itch for me at the time. Will have to reinstall.
Please do, it's so worth it. Especially if you have friends.
@@riotfist9747oof
@@riotfist9747 "Only" if you have friends. 2 fundamentally isn't designed in a way that meshes with a single player focus, 1 worked so well because the 2d environment ensured you were always aware of all possible threats and could react accordingly, you can't do that in 2 on your own because at any time you only see 180 degrees of vision.
@@Cr3zanthere is Audio, situational awareness, and passively gauging the aim of incoming projectiles in order to avoid them, i.e: not running over old paths too often.
While yes, 3D makes it harder to see things in all degrees, there's other ways players can detect enemies.
On the other hand: Line of Sight is far greater than in 2d, and the extra Axis gives more options for movement and evasion.
I think Alloy Vultures are a solid example of this stuff.
Every sound is distinct, every thrown feather of theirs takes time to travel, and even their wings make noise during flight.
You can use these sounds and their last position for a mental image of where they might be at and where their feathers could be aimed on their flight path to you.
Yeah, as someone who has modded that game quite a bit, I can see how it was originally built to let you play as enemies
The entire character system is modularly built to easily allow for stuff like that
8:20 they actually added something similar to this in ror2 (the heretic (hidden survivor))
amazing video
I remember playing and loving the free demo of RoR, came at such an amazing time in the indie dev scene
i played modded risk of rain 1 and seeing the unused sprites i realised that content from the starstorm mod is partly made with unused sprites
Fantastic video I love risk or rain, now do deep rock galactic!
Great games and a great video
Thanks, glad you enjoyed the video!
Thank you Hopoo.
Oh this made me more excited to play Risk of Rain 2 eventually! At the moment I can't play because my notebook isn't strong enough to handle the game well (even more with the time is difficulty mechanic) after I update or change to a better system and have some spare money I will buy it to experience this game (and add some more songs to my playlist since I really like progressive rock)
Thank you Glen! 😊💛✨
My pleasure!
Alot of the unused assets are in the mode RoR:Starstorm, is it semi-official, did Hopoo just release the sprites and stuff?
I love ror2. I occasionally come back to it for a day or 2 and get sucked into the journey of forgetting and relearning the mechanics. I like to play modded difficulty to keep me on my toes, but the base game is a masterpiece. The fact that only 3 people made something so polished and flavorful shows what talent they have. I look forward to their future and hope they retain their identity.
yeah same here its one i can also come back to if i want to play something for a couple hours