In a uncommon interview, Bluey creator Joe Brumm, the thoughts behind the present, sat down with Halfbrick CEO Shainiel Deo (Fruit Ninja) to speak about their collaboration to make Bluey’s Quest for the Gold Pen. The extremely anticipated recreation launch is just about the one dose of latest Bluey storytelling followers are getting this yr and considered one of Brumm’s final contributions to the beloved sequence he started.
The duo go method again, and when it got here to breaking the idea of the upcoming Bluey recreation, Brumm knew fellow Aussie recreation studio Halfbrick was the way in which to go. “They make cool types of indie video games. Like, that was the spirit of Bluey.” Brumm stated of reaching out to Deo and his group to deal with a singular idea for Bluey, “I imagine it’s a punk rock type of present in that sense. So I believed, ‘No, these guys, they’ll make a cool recreation.’ And that’s occurred just a few occasions in Bluey, the place individuals are simply powered by, like, an alternate power supply. It’s how issues find yourself good round Bluey.”
And a type of issues that ended up good was the fan-favorite episodes “Dragon” and “Escape”, the place audiences observe the Heeler household into their very own artwork world. “Within the sequence, we’ve created a mechanic the place the children draw, their drawings come alive, and we see them animated,” Brumm stated of how that concept appeared ripe for a gameplay mechanic. “Wet day exterior, the entire household across the desk drawing, and we’re going to enter their drawings.”
Brumm continued, “And now the story there’s Dad’s taking the golden pen, and Bluey wants it for one thing she’s doing. And so there’s a pursuit, there’s a number of ranges, and Dad’s all the time eluding them. Mum’s the creator of all of the worlds, you understand; she attracts the worlds.”
“I’m actually glad that Joe launched that mechanic of the drawn worlds,” stated Deo. “You understand, the shackles have been taken off. They might create all these completely different prototypes, which they’d by no means have been capable of do in the actual Bluey world.”
Brumm added, “The fantastic thing about these drawn worlds [they are places] the place you might be actually dastardly and villainous, and the children adore it as a result of it’s their story and it’s a fairy story and it’s excessive. There’s no meanness or spite there; it’s only a massive, goosey recreation they’re enjoying.”
Deo cited their shared inspiration: “I used to be actually excited, really, to have nearly like this open world, you understand, the place Bluey might simply journey off, as a result of we all the time wished to have some core mechanics however have a spot that the gamers might discover. I feel we discovered a number of actually attention-grabbing mechanics from video games that we might have performed method again within the day.” and elaborated, “For me, you have a look at old-school Zelda video games, top-down isometric, there’s heaps of that in there, like Mario Odyssey.”
Joe added, “What I like concerning the recreation is that it’s meant to be enjoyable. The story I wrote seems like the easy setup you’d get from a Commodore 64 platformer—we’ve received an issue, and we’ve received a villain, so let’s go get it.”
Deo continued to share how Halfbrick actually wished to honor the household dynamic Brumm started that households everywhere in the world related to, “For me, it’s only a good old school recreation. The worlds are whimsical, the story and the characters, they’re healthful. They are often irreverent generally. Actually, there’s simply this healthful type of vibe to the entire thing. So it’s only a enjoyable expertise.”
Brumm defined how the sport ties into the adventures he’s spent over a decade sharing by the present: “Bandit’s received a gold pen that may flip all the things gold. He’s a little bit of a cross between King Midas and David Lee Roth. Yeah—he’s me,” the creator shared, in one of many solely occasions he’s admitted what followers have lengthy speculated, that Bandit is an extension of himself.
Deo affirmed, “I might see that Joe is writing himself into this story 100%.”
The chat additionally dug into Brumm’s hopes for this newest Bluey launch being the identical as his hopes for the present. “Success for me with this recreation means the identical as with the sequence. I need to see glad children enjoying this recreation,” the elusive creator behind Bluey shared, “and once they play it, they’re smiling, they usually adore it, they usually need to present their buddies, they usually need to inform their mother and father about it and go, ‘Hey, I did this.’”
Watch the remainder of the interview beneath:
Bluey’s Quest for the Gold Pen will likely be out there on the Apple App Retailer on December 11 with a free model to try to an possibility for a one-time buy of all the degrees. Its launch by the Google Play retailer is about for January 10, 2026. The sport is because of increase to larger methods, together with PC, Nintendo Change, Nintendo Change 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Sequence X|S, later in 2026.
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