“Airhead maintains its focus on exploring the Metroidvania genre, but replaces combat with puzzle-solving, an adventure about responsibility and the bond that forms between body and head, it will do anything to save.”
In a world where air is the primary power source, an airhead’s body must keep head-like creatures alive while attempting to reconnect with its original source of air. Airhead appears to offer no small amount of challenge, so developer Octato co-founder and game director Andreas Bødker and publisher HandyGames senior producer Reinhard Döpfer were kind enough to answer all of our questions. He answered me. question!
What is Airhead?
Airhead is a Metroidvania-style adventure with puzzles and platforming elements. It is developed from Octato and published by HandyGames.
When will Airhead be released?
We don’t have a specific release date for the Airhead yet, but it’s still slated for 2022 at this point. Stay up to date!
what is it about?
The “airhead” in question consists of two entities: a body and a head. The body witnessed an attack that ripped its head off the air source it needed to survive. The body puts the head on its shoulder and sets off to reunite the head with its air source.
“It’s an important part of the story. “We had the idea that the more you put the player into an empty shell, the more you could put yourself into that character, but it turns out that there needs to be a little bit of story related to the character you’re playing…we has a story, but that’s part of what’s being told during the game…it’s one of the weirdest secrets of the game. There was also a metagame where you controlled the body while the body got the head, and the idea was that he controlled it. I thought it was kind of nice that the story was mirrored by the meta-story of you playing the character. ”
One of the ideas Airhead explores is how far you can go for another being. “I really felt like making something about the choices you make. How close you are to other beings. How much you can help them,” he said. Bødker explains. “When you see the head laying around while playing with the body, it’s a very obvious relationship. They feel connected, but it’s still weird. I like the idea.”
How does Airhead play?
The head slowly retracts as you embark on a mission. To maintain it, you must use an air tank. Explore, solve puzzles, learn new abilities, and strengthen the bond between body and mind.
Because when you pick up your head, you’re using your head for a lot of things at first. You need your arms to hold onto the head, so it’s a little cumbersome to hold other things or climb shelves and things. You’ll begin to see how wonderful it is to be with you, but you still have a mission to save Head, because if you leave him, he’ll die.” You’ll have to find another part of your head to put in, and that’s the main mission… but when you get to the end, it’ll be a little sad to have to put your head down. It’s fun to have a head and do everything you can with it. ”
As we’ll explore in more detail in the next section of the interview, air is the primary power source in the Airhead world. “Air is an important part of the world. All the abilities you get are based on your head and air,” he explains Bødker. “The air types are also different, so for example there is helium, so if you put that air type in your head you can float, but there are also equipment that you can wear on your head that give you additional abilities. Machine control, etc. , not only equipment for improving your interaction with the world, but also for traversal”—for example, you can retract your head and double jump.
There are also traversal puzzles to face, but “most of them are very integrated with the story,” says Bødker. “The whole script we made for this game was actually a description of all the puzzles, which was weird to the person who sent the script. They said, ‘This is just a list of puzzles.’ Having said that, it was very important that the gameplay actually told the story. Many of the puzzles require understanding the world around you,” he continues. And sometimes understanding the goal of the puzzle can even be a puzzle itself…and that can be very difficult at times. will be In that sense, creating a game like this was quite a gamble. upon. But the nature of exploration puzzle games — we felt it was important to add this kind of extra twist to the puzzle. It was great working with HandyGames and his QA team to make sure it wasn’t frustrating. ”
Döpfer adds that a hint system is available. Some of them are really difficult, so the game starts to help you and give you tips on how to solve them. Bødker said the team “want as many people as possible to love the game…and if you solve a puzzle the moment you see it, it loses its meaning and becomes tedious.” However, if you give up, there will be no meaning.The threshold is different for each person, so I tried to create a system that everyone can enjoy playing.”
Therefore, one of the important mechanisms is the time pressure between the air tanks to run out of air. “If you’re helping people…or if you’re doing something that makes you feel like ‘this is the right thing to do’ but you’re not thinking about the complexity of the world around you…if you have a time limit, then say, ‘Okay. I thought, ‘I need to do this, I need to make this decision right away,’ and that’s kind of the first idea for a theme for this game,” says Bødker. “I mean, the all-time pressure helps with that theme… Also, if you have that tension and you don’t know, ‘Oh, can I get to the air supply in time,’ do it right before you die, and the screen will When it starts fading out, it’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s solved.’ Interestingly, when you sit still with the Airhead, you don’t lose air. Döpfer elaborated on this, saying, “You don’t lose air when you’re still. You don’t lose air when you’re on the floor, but it starts the moment you move…the checkpoint isn’t too far away, and dying doesn’t start you from the beginning of an entire level, so that’s a good point.”
Döpfer adds: this. “We also have a library where you can learn more about all things.” There are things, but you can interact with them in a good way,” explains Döpfer. “Some people pick you up and take you to another platform. Things like that. You can upgrade your head to carry more air. Special things like Charge You get abilities and even drill heads that can punch through walls.”
what does the world look like?
The world of Airhead is full of strange technology and strange creatures. “I think it’s really important to give a character a situation where they have a dilemma and need conflict, and that conflict should come from the world around them,” he begins Bødker. “We created this world where compressed air is the primary power source, not the oil that we have in our world. The creatures have been removed and the ecosystem in this area has been destroyed and left by the people who harvested the creatures.There will be no more air in this area, so all the creatures and machines you encounter in the game will die. And every creature you meet has some sort of dependence on air,” he continues. It’s a world we built for.”
Any news on Airhead’s performance?
No Airhead experience yet, but Bødker provided ideas for the Octato design process. “Games are the medium for telling this story,” says Bødker, referring to his head-body relationship. He helps with the story. So we designed them to be part of it and tried to integrate them into the story,” continues Bødker. of insight into the world and what matters, and how important what you do. When you get an achievement, you know, ‘Oh, this must be important. Descriptions of their achievements can help us understand the world better, so we use them as a vehicle for storytelling. Interestingly, Bødker adds, the team “even came up with some achievements that extend the overall experience…”.
Of Bødker’s ideal list of achievements, he says: You can also use additional challenges to track your progress when you play the game on your own, especially in a world where you’re not sure if you’ve been through it all I think. This is a very useful tool for knowing when you are playing a game, “Okay, I’ve achieved all my achievements and I can go to sleep.” ”
So, out of all this, what does Bødker want players to take away from the game? “Throughout the entire development of this game, it’s been very emotional for me as well to be able to do this game that I’ve wanted to do for so long and finally have the opportunity to do it.” It’s been really great.It’s tough for me too, but I hope it all shines.I believe it will.” Döpfer said. That means you can play on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, or PC. This is important to us. I’m really looking forward to seeing how people react to this style of game, the more scaled-down art style we used. ”
So what do you think of airheads? Let us know in the comments!
