The game is bringing a retro-futuristic flair to the streaming service’s gaming wing.

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This interview was transcribed from a video interview and edited for clarity.

GameSpot: First question, a simple one: Why pixel art in 2022?

Andrew Schimmel: Yeah, it’s a good question.

It was a huge challenge, but it was exciting to try something new.

We wanted to bring that feeling to a new generation, introducing players to something they haven’t played.

What about that story drew you in and inspired you to make this game?

I think players are really going to gravitate towards that feeling when they play the game.

You’ll instantly feel it once you start swiping through the levels.

You get to take a lot out of that without having a story presented or spoon-fed to you.

What facilitated that change?

Schimmel:This is a great question.

Endless runners are great for that.

Patience is something we really leaned into with Lucky Luna.

That’s what this game is going to be about; horizontal motion and a focus on falling."

How do you balance the patience you want your players to have with the “time trial” concept?

Schimmel:That was a huge challenge.

With each game we create, we want to double-check there’s something for everyone.

They’re both fun, but they both appeal to different demographics.

With our games, we want anyone to be able to pick this up and play it.

That’s why we went with single button input swiping to move around.

The more of those you find, the better your score will be as well.

We reward accuracy and patience more than high scores.

Does this game have a concrete ending, or is it simply going to generate dungeons infinitely?

Earlier we talked about your previous game, the endless runner Alto’s Adventure.

What lessons learned during that development cycle helped in this cycle?

With Luna, a lot more hands went into this game.

We want players to feel engaged, but at ease at the same time.

We don’t want people to feel frustrated while they’re playing.

That’s something that we’ve tried to get into every game.

We also had to figure out the perfect “size” for each stage.

Alto was procedural, and this game has an intense procedural side as well.

Each stage is made up of handcrafted pieces that can be reassembled in multiple ways.

In Alto, for example, you’re free to essentially only backflip.

We were also talking about Alto focusing on horizontal movement versus verticality here in Luna.

What new challenges in development arose from that change?

It sounds like a simple change, but I assume there’s a mountain of elements to consider.

Schimmel: Yeah definitely, and in a myriad of ways.

In terms of going from horizontal to vertical, it’s honestly not the biggest design change.

Another intense element was creating both a story mode and an endless mode at the same time.

I think that’s probably the biggest difference.

It’s like developing two different games, but in this case they work complementary to one another.

Texting, checking email, phone calls, and more are all done this way.

We’ve always talked about the idea of making a game in portrait mode as opposed to landscape.

I’m going to open this game and play for a while."

You don’t have to take that extra step.

I’m curious about where Netflix entered the picture.

Was Lucky Luna something you approached them with, or did they come to you?

Any time we’re making a game, the monetization strategy is a huge decision.

It’s really hard to commit to one strategy because it really affects the way you develop the game.

You have to know if you’re making a premium game or if you’re going free-to-play.

Are there going to be in-app purchases?

Are we going to rely on ads for funding?

The free-to-play model isn’t how we ideally approach gaming.

It’s what we grew up with, and it’s what we think works best on other platforms.

However, this is what made bringing the game to Netflix such a huge win for us.

They got behind the idea right away.

However, it seemed at the time to be the only way mobile games worked.

That’s another element that makes this Netflix partnership so exciting:So many peoplehave Netflix.

It allows us to make our game how we want without compromising on our monetization philosophy.

Schimmel:That is a huge win for us.

But is there room in the market today, in the mobile market specifically, for a premium game?

One where you pay for it, play it until you beat it, and then move on?

Or do you think that ship has sailed for mobile and F2P/monetization is the future?

I think that idea is just gone.

Part of the reason goes beyond mobile gaming too, as there’s just so much content out there.

TikTok wasn’t around when we launched Alto.

That’s a major change to the landscape.

That being said, I think there are also more options than ever for developing games.

It’s more accessible, with more platforms and services to launch a game on.

I would say 2015-2016 were the years where you could do something like that and it would be reasonable.

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