HAL shares the entire design process behind the original BOXBOY!

With BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL! now available on Switch, developer HAL thought it was the perfect time to look back at how the series got started. The info below comes from a dev blog from HAL, which aims to chronicle the creation of the very first BOXBOY game.

- the game was the brainchild of Yasuhiro Mukae, a designer at HAL Labs who previously hadn’t been in charge of any game
- Mukae took advantage of HAL's decision to let anybody pitch ideas to share his BOXBOY idea
- Mukae wanted to do a puzzle game, and had experience creating fun games and studying other puzzle games
- the key feature would be the ability to create boxes
- characters and stages would be kept as simple-looking as possible
- a programmer was interested in the concept, and helped Mukae out with programming a one-stage prototype
- Mukae presented his game idea and its selling points to the higher-ups using this demo stage
- Mukae was asked “Why a puzzle game?”, “Why this sort of world?”, “How will you expand upon this idea?”, and more
- the prototype helped Mukae explain what would make BOXBOY fun
- Mukae was told to begin the game as an experimental project, and he was in charge
- Mukae put together a team of 8, including a project manager, designer, and programmer
- Mukae had intended Qbby’s design to originally be just a placeholder
- character designer Itou wanted to make use of the character’s simple looks, with some adjustments
- Itou put a lot off effort into Qbby’s legs to make its actions seem more comical
- after creating the basics, the team went back to the mid-project presentation, only to be met with lackluster reactions
- the team were told things were too simplistic, and perhaps they should experiment with color
- the team tried out numerous art-styles, but really felt the original approach made the most sense
- seeing their final decision, the higher-ups acknowledged their choice, and began to negotiate with Nintendo
- with Nintendo’s agreement, the project began to scale up and add more staff
- music in the beta version used live flutes, but Mukae felt it didn’t match the dot-by-dot and monochrome world,
- HAL Labs also worked on creating extra content, such as story, extra costumes, and even short four-panel comics
- once work was completed, HAL Labs immediately went into the making of the overseas version
- “Hakoboy” didn’t mean anything to English speakers, so they changed the name to BoxBoy!
- the team then decided upon a universal name for the main character, Qbby
- the team was nervous about how BOXBOY! would be received, as it was to be shown in a Nintendo Direct
- the team ended up breathing a sigh of relief when positive comments came in