Pixel Q&A Session Discussion

Recently a Q&A session was hosted with Pixel, organised by dawnDus, who runs the main Cave Story discord - the results were professionally translated (both the questions to EN > JP and then the answers back to EN), and there's some pretty interesting stuff, including a few long-running Cave Story lore questions finally getting an answer which as a cave story lore nerd was personally very exciting

Dawn's hosted the questions and answers on his site (found here), so I'll link that rather than just copy-paste, since there's a fair amount. Not sure yet if Pixel will host a copy on his site (though he did add a mention that he was participating in the Q&A)...

Given the links to this was posted on pretty much every major Cave Story discord as well as Twitter, I'm sure most people know by now, but I figured I'd make mention of it here for anyone who hasn't :V

 

"The road" is practically a meme at this point.

 

It's very interesting seeing an interview like this so many years later.

I especially liked his humble and realistic outlook on how the indie game industry has changed in the last 18 years.

I was very amused by his answer to the question about changing things about the game. I remember years ago reading an interview where he'd consider changing the main character entirely. But this time around, he answered about how he just wanted to be done with it by the end, and how he half-jokingly said he didn't want to re-do any part of it ever again because he was just ready to be done with the project.

I kind of wish he would have had more to say on the topic of the various fan works derived from his creations. I'm sure he's aware that there are plenty of fan works, but I've always gotten the impression that he hasn't had much of a desire to delve too deep into what the Cave Story fandom is up to. I guess this is further alluded to when he gets asked about Sue's/CE/BL, and he just says "I don't know much."

Oh wow, we got answers on how the island floats and on whether or not many people died in the normal ending. Called it and called it.

For the "The pain.. It hurts... So hot...", I always assumed that was Ballos reflecting on his time being tortured, and secondarily would have been willing to believe it was Balrog coming down. I would not have guessed it was the cries of the people who were caught up in Ballos' spasm of magic.

For his answer on which ending is cannon, I'm having trouble telling if he misunderstood the question, or if he's just being cheeky.

And this is both such a good question and such a good answer, that I just need to paste it here in its entirety:

Working as a solo developer can be a lonely job. Do you have any advice for people who create games as a one-man-team?

It's fun to make games, even alone, as long as you're making time for life in between.
But I also feel there are so many things to do when making a game that there isn't enough time.
Taking care of your physical and mental health is important--you wouldn't want to die before completing your game.

 

Oh wow, we got answers on how the island floats and on whether or not many people died in the normal ending. Called it and called it.

i called both too, i've had more than my fair share of debates with people about the normal ending specifically (the credit cutscenes should've made it so obvious and yet), so i was feeling very smug that i was right about that lmao