Today, we’re sharing an interview with the Norwegian „retro badgers” behind Roguecraft! A roguelike game for people that love tentacles, potions, dungeons, and pixel art—recently debuted on Steam, making it the perfect time to chat about a title that has been engaging players for quite some time.
Badger Punch Games is a studio formed by two friends —Henning Ludvigsen and Ricki Sickenger— who have been creating games for retro platforms for years. We’ll discuss their early projects for 8-bit computers, find out which retro events are popular in Norway, look at the future of Roguecraft, and explore the tools they used to design those pixelated dungeons. A big thank you to the Two Frogs in a Trenchcoat team for helping organize this interview and if you aren’t familiar with the game yet, I invite you to check out the review as well.
repip: Hi there! I’ve just finished playing Roguecraft DX (Steam), and I have to admit I’d been waiting for this version ever since I saw the first trailer for the Amiga edition back in September 2024. This isn’t your first game though, you already done several games for retro hardware. I’m curious about how the game’s concept evolved—moving from Rogue 4K and Rogue64 on the Commodore 64 to Roguecraft on the Amiga. Did the idea come to you naturally, was it a coincidence, or was it driven by feedback from the scene?
Badger Punch Games: Hello! Thanks for checking out our game!
Technically, we’ve been making small games on the side since 2010. We met in the Amiga demo scene back in 1993, and have been keeping close contact ever since and even worked together for over a decade on an MMORPG called Darkfall Online. This is a long winded story includes us moving to from Norway Greece to start a game studio.
Roguecraft DX has quite an elaborate evolutional history. It started out with Rogue 4K where Ricki was entering a game jam where the contest was to create a game for the Commodore 64 within a memory limit of 4kb. People seem to like the game, so we decided to add graphics, music and more features and released it as Rogue 64, also on the Commodore 64. It got a digital release and physical big box release on a cartridge. The next natural step was porting it to the Amiga, but Henning insisted on taking the graphics quite a bit further and wanted to go with an isometric view. This became Roguecraft and had tons of additional features and also got a digital and physical release. This game performed really well and even won a few awards and got raving reviews, and we were offered to release it on the Evercade platform. For this release we wanted to add quite a bit extra to the game, which ended up being Roguecraft DX, which has done really well on Evercade and seems to be a “must have” cartridge among the fans of the Evercade system.
Rogue 4K – Rogue 64 – Roguecraft DX, quite an evolution
Also releasing the DX version on the Amiga was a natural next step, so we did that, simultaneously as the Mega65 and Game Boy Color version of the game. All of these also got a digital and physical release. The game is currently being ported to a wide range of retro platforms.
Our latest release is Roguecraft DX on Steam. The name is the same, but we have added quite a few new features to adapt more to a more modern gaming audience with different expectations than the retro audience.
A funny thing is that quite a few decisions and even algorithms made during development of Rogue 4K are still in use in the current version of the game. It’s a dynamic evolution that just happened due to love and requests from players and fellow retro developers wanting to help port the game to different systems.
repip: Roguecraft is a very fast-paced game with simple mechanics and high replayability. It’s perfect for playing at, say, a retro party among enthusiasts who gather to play and talk about the good old days. I’m curious—are such retro events popular in Norway, too? Events where players set up their 8-bit and 16-bit computers and build a community together? Or perhaps events like these actually influenced your decision to create games for retro platforms?
Badger Punch Games: Yes, we have several small and larger retro gaming events in Norway. The biggest ones are; Retromessa in Sandefjord with over 10k people visiting every year. There’s Spillmessa in Kristiansand, also with thousands of visitors. Here we often have a booth where people can play our games and purchase physical boxes with the games. There’s also hundreds of retro gaming systems and computers on display for everyone to experience and meet and talk about the good old days.
These events are definitely fueling our passion to show the audience that there is a surprisingly large retro game development scene, and that there are tons of new games still being made for all of these systems.
repip: Even though the Steam version is a recent arrival, Roguecraft itself has been around for several years. Looking back at the time since its original launch, would you say the game has met your expectations? Did you anticipate such a long lifecycle? What are the differences between what you expected for the first half of 2024 and what happend after that?
Badger Punch Games: We never expect anyone to play our games, so everything that’s happened has taken us by surprise. Apparently we’ve struck a nerve with this game, and it seems to appeal to people who love the simpler games from the good old days and who have limited spare time. Our game respects people’s time, and seems to be a game that people can play to wind down after a hard time at work. Just playing a short session to get their mind off of things even just for a short time.
We never anticipated that this game would have such an impact, and we’re thrilled to see there’s a place for a small roguelike game in the vast ocean of super complex and time consuming roguelikes.
repip: Given the various ports and the DX version upgrade, it seems fair to ask: was there any game element that came up during development—something you wanted to include but didn’t, because the Amiga couldn’t handle it? Or can the Amiga handle anything? ;)
Badger Punch Games: The Amiga can handle a surprising amount of stuff, but there are clear limits to certain aspects that would be tricky to pull off. Especially the later dungeons in the new Endless Dungeons game mode where the players will encounter many more monsters in each room; this would be a bit more of a challenge to pull off on the old hardware. Also things like animated environments, and so on. When working on the original Amiga version, we’re quite aware of the limitations, so we haven’t really discussed ideas that might be too tricky to pull off.
repip: Following up slightly on the previous question, I’d like to ask about something other players have also pointed out to me: do you plan to add a more expanded inventory system? Have you even considered something simple, like just one armor slot and one weapon slot?
Badger Punch Games: We have played with the idea of having perhaps one weapons or armour update, but we always end up agreeing that the current focused simplicity of the game works really well as is. Once you start adding new features you’ll often end up with feature creep which would expand the game development time indefinitely. This game is supposed to be simple, and we’re trying to stay true to that initial vision.
A simple formula is something the creators are sticking to at all costs—that’s exactly how it was meant to be: a game suited to modern times, when… there is no time
repip: A new addition in the Steam version is our companion Badger, with whom we can now take a walk through the dungeons. Reading the Steam thread dedicated to this new feature, I got the impression that you plan to add other pets as well. Can you let us in on the secret?
Badger Punch Games: We have a couple of ideas, but nothing that we’re ready to share with anyone at the moment. Our ideas often happen fairly instinctively and quickly once we figure out what we want, and we’re sure the same will happen with this. All we can say is that there might be a variation of familiars (or two) after a future patch.
repip: You were creating Roguecraft even before the current massive AI wave that is affecting retro game developers as well. I therefore assume that this magnificent artwork where every single pixel has its precisely defined place is the result of countless hours of work, careful thought, and experimentation that deserve recognition. Could you tell us about the process of „interior design” for these dungeons? What tools did you use, and what were your inspirations?
Badger Punch Games: Every pixel in Roguecraft is hand made, which is important to us. We’re using a system we call “dynamic indexing” in Photoshop, based on Dan Fesslers YouTube Video.
Using this technique as a foundation we’ve expanded it a bit, making it possible to have a set palette that can also be changed to any amount of colours needed while still being able to work non destructively with most of the tools within Photoshop. This technique has been priceless to us especially when porting all this art to all kinds of different retro and new platforms that all require different colour ranges and visual variations.
As it turns out, good old Photoshop works good even here
Once we had the floor and wall tile sheets ready, we built every room in the game using these modular tile pieces with a tool called “Tiled”. This tool is great for creating level and room designs when using pixel art.
repip: Since I’ve already asked about the graphics, I simply have to ask about the music as well. Believe it or not, the main theme keeps popping into my head every now and then—ever since I first heard it in 2024! I’m curious about the process: did Jogeir compose the music while looking at your game, creating it specifically for you, or did he already have parts of it ready, and you just thought, „This is exactly what we need!”?
Badger Punch Games: Getting the legendary Amiga composer Jogeir Liljedahl to create the music for our game was a dream come true. If we remember correctly he started on the theme song based on descriptions of the game. All the other in-game music tracks were made when Jogeir had more visual references to get inspiration from.
repip: Roguecraft DX has just launched on Steam; we’ve talked about the past, but what are your plans for the future? Do you have more ports for other platforms in the works, or is it time to leave these dungeons behind and start working on a new game?
Badger Punch Games: There are many retro ports in the works, most of them still not announced, and we’re also launching on GOG, Nintendo Switch, and probably a couple of other modern platforms.
more ports are on the way, for both retro and modern hardware
We’ve been working on this game for a few years, and we’ve remade it again and again, and we’re ready for our next project. We just need to ride the Roguecraft train to the end first. We have a couple of ideas for what’s next, and we’re looking forward to getting started on this once we’ve had a bit of rest.
repip: Thank you very much for this interview, on behalf of myself and the readers of retronagazie.eu I wish you a successful reception of Roguecraft DX by the gaming community on Steam!
Badger Punch Games: Thank you for the interview, and thanks to everyone who read all the way to the end! We’re hoping the Steam community will enjoy the game!
