Hey everyone!
We are Bytten Studio, the dev team behind Cassette Beasts. Cassette Beasts is a monster-recording open world adventure RPG, where the player finds themselves on the mysterious island of New Wirral. In this world, people use cassette players to transform into monsters to battle! What’s more, the player is able to fuse monster forms with their allies with Cassette Beasts’ unique Fusion System!
The game released on May 25th for Nintendo Switch, and has since appeared in Metacritic’s [list of best video games of 2023 so far](https://www.metacritic.com/pictures/best-games-of-2023-at-midyear). This week our [1.2 Update](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HR4rkbXNpE) launched, which brought new monsters and moves to the game, along with performance fixes for console versions (including Switch).
Here is our launch trailer: [https://youtu.be/\_8OKh6nqlgw](https://youtu.be/_8OKh6nqlgw)
Verification: [https://twitter.com/ByttenStudio/status/1675137502246518786](https://twitter.com/ByttenStudio/status/1675137502246518786)
Team members:
* Jay – /u/SamuriFerret \- Art and writing
* Tom – /u/tcoxon \- Programming and design
We’re really looking forward to your questions and we’ll try our best to answer them, so please ask away!
EDIT: We’re going to start wrapping up on the AMA now. Thanks so much for all your questions – it’s been great fun and there’s been some really great questions too! If you have any future questions about the game, you can always swing by the official subreddit /r/CassetteBeasts. Have a great rest of the weekend!
by SamuriFerret
34 Comments
Any chance we will be seeing more of sunny in the dlc? If you don’t want to answer that: will the dlc let us finally buy clothing at the clothing shop?
I’ve noticed a lot of similarities to the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games in the plot and in a few of the game mechanics. Was Mystery Dungeon one of your inspirations for Cassette Beasts or were the similarities just coincidences?
Do you plan on more DLC’s after the pier?
Were there lessons learned for future projects?
How did you get to the conclusion of offering either Sweet or Spooky to the players to decide their starter? Was there any other ideas/options prior?
Great game! Love it and completed it on Switch (great job with the performance patch btw) and I am currently making my way through a recorded second playthrough on Xbox. Something bugs me though, although I’m not that bothered it does raise the question…
Why is this game not on PlayStation at all?
which was the first cassette beast to be designed? are there any that ended up with different designs than what was originally planned for them?
Any details you can share for online multiplayer? How will it work, player interactions, cross platform compatibility, etc?
We’ll see more of the companions in the future? (An update or a DLC?)
I know you love all your children equally, but real talk… What’s your favorite beast?
Would it be possible to get the artbook as a separate release from the PC version on Steam sometime in the future?
Which came first in your opinion: the chicken or the egg?
Hiii Byttteeenn!!!
Where did your inspiration come from for using cassette tapes to transform in battle? Any other options (VHS, CDs, game cartridges, etc.) you considered before sticking with cassette tapes?
Do you plan to have crossplay for the multiplayer? 😀
Hi, love how you call the game a monster-recording game and not a monster-collecting one. Nice touch! I haven’t yet played the game but I’d love it if you guys can convince me to get it right now! I had been dying to play the game since I first saw it mentioned on YouTube then it finally dropped and the performance critiques made me wait. I know the recent patch fixed a lot of it but I sorta lost the hype for it a bit. So, anything you guys can say to get me excited about the game again?
Congrats on launching the game and good luck as you develop it further!
helloooo bytten 🙂
i’d like to ask– did you all gather inspiration for the archangels from anything particular? obviously they originate from human traits (specifically vices), but was there any motivator that led you all to select the ones you did, particularly the parallel of rebellion vs conquest?
Hi!
What does a monster tape sound like? Assuming it sounds like something
I love your game! You announced multiplayer days ago, can we expect a system where certain monsters could evolve via trading? 🙂
Best Chippy on the Wirral?
I’m honestly really curious about how Sunny and Barkley came to be implemented, especially considering how little each of them ended up mattering (in my opinion) in the final game. With Sunny, she comes in with a great series of cutscenes, has several unique voice lines other NPCs don’t use, and has TWO full sets of portraits… but then just sits around town forever. Meanwhile, Barkley was made one of the playable partners, but his “quest” boils down to “climb this singular cliff and fight a bird”, any dialogue other partners would have is replaced by things like “Barkley sniffs around” or “Barkley growls a bit”, and he doesn’t even yip during battle or anything (it honestly bugged me that his recording is completely silent like the player’s).
Barkley isn’t a BAD addition by any means, but I was honestly shocked at how little it felt like he added, and with how many assets were put into Sunny it just made me feel like maybe there were development crunch issues, like things ended up being cut late in the process, or maybe Barkley DID have a longer quest with an actual boss planned, and it just wasn’t in the cards. Mainly wanted to pick your brains a bit about it.
EDIT: Also wanted to echo the sentiment of really wanting to see more Sunny, ideally as a new partner (and possible companion? 🥺), but even if it’s just more quests / cutscenes like Frankie I’d still greatly appreciate it.
I don’t have a question, I just wanted to tell you how much I love this game and how it has been a big comfort to me the past few weeks while dealing with some health issues. I can’t wait to see all the new content whenever it comes our way!
Any plans to release a physical copy in the future?
Can I ask about Lenna’s Inception? I just played that recently after loving Cassette Beasts, and I fell absolutely in love with it too! I grew up fascinated by glitches, especially in gen 1 Pokemon games, to see the story so involved in the mechanics of glitch manipulation and arbitrary code execution was such a delight.
The 255 pizzas scene had me laughing so hard I actually got lightheaded, and naming the ACE object after 8F, the ACE item from Pokemon was really cool too! From the Missinglasses to Glitch City, there’s a surprising number of Pokemon references in particular, but the screen looping also reminded me of that Link’s Awakening screen transition glitch as well.
I wanted to know about the inspiration behind the glitch and meta aspects of the story, how much was general programming references, how much was inspired by Pokemon or other series glitches in particular?
Can we hope for performance improvements for Switch? The latest update has been a big improvement but the game still runs quite poorly.
I really love how you took the formula of a certain well loved game and basically improved upon everything on it. The fights are very tactical, you can’t just spike everything with your starter, the mechanics have a low floor and a high ceiling and even the the “normal” type and “shinies” are useful. Just incredible what you did!
As for my questions:
* Was the fusion mechanic inspired by that old hilarious pokemon fusion page?
* Where are you actually getting all the beast puns from? Personally I would probably have to use chatgpt to get half as many x)
Any possibility you will make merchandise for this amazing game? You are doing a great job on it.
Did you like my review? Hahaha joking, actual question time. Regarding your upcoming DLC, are you aiming for a 2023 or 2024 release? Obviously you might not want to answer that so here is my back up question. Which is your favourite “Monster Catching” game? Answering with Cassette Beasts will get you a one way trip to the Pier of the Unknown!
how long are you planning to update and add to cassette beasts? 😮
First off, love the game, been enjoying it for a lil while now and I’m glad I stumbled across it.
I’m curious if there are any thoughts to allow for modding/customisation. Maybe modding may be hard on the Switch in particular (but maybe for PC?) but could also think about something like what Link’s Awakening does with Dampe’s Dungeon to allow the creation of custom maps, or allowing someone to ‘seed’ the map with the beasts on the island as they prefer?
What was the process of porting to Switch like? Were there any particular snags that made the process difficult? Am making my own monster tamer and wondering how far I should go with it!
Would you be open to making a card game in the future? I get that you have a lot on your plate 🙂
Hello. I’ve been playing these games on steam deck and have been having a great time! Are there any plans to make archangels playable/recordable?
What brought you to the decisions of which beasts were the starters?
Big fan and eager to see more honestly! I’ve been hooked since release!
Odd questions, what do you prefer to make, and whats more likely; Whole new lines of beasts, or remasters of old ones?
I love the branching evolutions and conditions, but I did just spend two hours hunting Salamagus!