Hot off the exclusive announcement in Switch Player magazine, Fabraz’s Slime-San will be getting a physical release through Limited Run Games. While the cheers around the office still ring loud, we found a quiet area to sit down with Fabraz’s founder, Fabian Rastorfer, to learn more about himself and his company!
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name’s Fabian Rastorfer and I’m the founder of Fabraz and project lead on Slime-san. I’m originally Swiss, but the company’s currently based in New York.
Growing up, what was the first console and game you remember playing?
It’s funny, I always thought I was a Nintendo kid because I grew up with the NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube etc. In truth, I recently realized, I actually started with a Sega console called the Sega Pico! It was actually kind of rad. The cartridges were little picture books and you’d flip the pages to display the picture in animated form on the TV.
What is your fondest video game memory from your childhood?
I’ve got a few, but a lot of my best memories are playing some Nintendo classics with my best friend. Not even multiplayer titles, but single player epics that we could experience together, handing off controllers every now and then. Many of my best memories are attached to the Gamecube I think. I was young enough to feel free and careless, but was old enough to also appreciate the craftsmanship that these games entailed. Gems like Wind Waker, Mario Sunshine and the like.
Founded in 2010, Fabraz is a U.S.-based independent video game studio that released its first game, Cannon Crasha, on PC and mobile back in 2013. Since then, Planet Diver was released in 2015 and 2017 saw Slime-San slink it’s way to the Nintendo Switch! A common theme across your games is that the fun factor is surged to 11 and it invokes the nostalgia days of 8-bit gaming. However, don’t let me do all the talking, haha. Could you share some words on the origins of Fabraz?
We all met, originally, in college during a Games 101 class. We decided we worked well together and released our first game before graduation. It did well enough that we formed a company straight afterwards and it’s been 3 years since then! Our breakout success is probably Slime-san, which has exceeded our expectations in every way. Super grateful for that!
How has it felt to see Slime-san so well received since its release late last year?
It’s been a trip! We feel like our staggered release schedule has actually helped Slime-san to get established, to spread the word slowly over time. The fact that we’re ranked so highly on metacritic or were nominated as one of the best platformers of 2017 by IGN is just incredibly awesome. Definitely the best part is seeing how the fanbase continues to grow and enjoy the game. Hearing people yell “Oh yeah. that’s Slime-san!” when walking past our conventions booths is just so gosh darn cool! Super excited to see what’s next for our lil’ slime-ball like the PS4 & Xbox One release or the Limited Run Games retail copies! How cool is that?!
Having been teased in a recent interview with us and then official announced in the latest issue of Switch Player magazine, Slime-San is heading to the physical realm courtesy of Limited Run Games. First off, congratulations! Secondly, can you describe the process and how you and LRG came to form this partnership?
We met Douglas, from Limited Run Games, at a convention and immediately hit it off. He’s a swell guy and has been super supportive of Slime-san; can’t thank the guy enough! I’m ridiculously excited to make retail copies of Slime-san with LRG and based on the reactions when we announced it, we’re not the only ones!
Is there a release date set at this time?
Nope! This is yet to be decided, but I expect it to be late Spring or early Summer.
Are you able to tease any upcoming projects currently being developed?
I cannot, but I can confirm that there is a new project in the works and just like our previous projects, it will be an entirely different genre again! Two words: Strategy RPG. Okay fine, that’s technically four words, but yeah, we’re really excited about this one. It’s something quite special.
Outside of developing your own titles, Fabraz is also entering the publisher space by bringing Eeendhoorn’s SpiritSphere, to the Nintendo Switch. What made you want to expand your portfolio to this side of the business and specifically the Nintendo Switch?
That’s right! We’re publishing Eendhoorn’s SpiritSphere DX to the Nintendo Switch! We realized that we felt established enough to help out some other developers to get their title on a Nintendo console and we’re super excited that SpiritSphere DX is the first title we’ll be publishing. It’s a game that originally launched on Steam and didn’t do nearly as well as it should have, so we’re hoping with the additional content and polish it’ll do better! Especially considering it’s a local multiplayer title, obviously the Nintendo Switch is PERFECT for it.
For those developers who are interested to learn more about what you can provide for them, what would you say?
The first thing we usually state is that we’re still developers, first and foremost. This means, if we pick you up to publish a game we’ll be very actively engaged with the development side of things. We’ll essentially act as advisors and in addition to that help out with any porting procedures. We will provide you with devkits for the relevant platforms as well. We also take care of the marketing best we can, do any & all of the administration work and will take both the game and developer to at least one major gaming conference. Depending on the project we can also partially provide funding. So if you’ve got any cool projects, send them over! However, we only sign one game at a time, as we want to give it our full attention while still being able to work on our projects.
Here’s a fun one! Any chance of seeing Slime-san in the upcoming Super Smash Bros? What’s it going to take to make this happen?
It’ll take A LOT of noise online to make that happen, I think. Haha! Would be cool though, huh?
Finally is there anything else you’d like to share today?
It’s been a darn good year for Fabraz and we have so much to look forward to. Slime-san on the Xbox One & PS4, retail copies with Limited Run Games, SpiritSphere DX on the Switch and other cool secrets… so I hope y’all tag along! Thanks for having me!
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https://www.facebook.com/fabrazgames/
