The tower-defense genre can be hit or miss when it comes to finding a game you’ll probably enjoy. But combine Pokémon-style creatures, charming graphics, and the ability to evolve your monsters, and you get Bean Beasts. We had the chance to chat with Josh, the developer behind the game, who shared more details about the game, what to expect from the demo, and some fun facts about its development.
Bean Beasts offers versatile mechanics, allowing you to manipulate the environment to your advantage. By strategically placing walls, you can redirect enemies and control the flow of combat, creating opportunities to outsmart your opponents. Additionally, the game unfolds across 40 hand-crafted levels, spread over five diverse biomes, each with its own visual flair and challenges. Eight epic boss encounters test your skills, demanding clever strategies to overcome their formidable power. For those seeking endless replayability, eight endless mode maps provide relentless waves of enemies to conquer.
Honestly, Bean Beasts is a true indie gem, crafted entirely by one developer, highlighting how saturated the market is with games, making it tough to find ones you’ll truly enjoy. You can try the demo on Steam and wishlist it there, though the release date is still unknown. Additionally, you can playtest the latest version of the game yourself by joining its Discord server.
Tell me about yourself and your experience as a developer. What led you to work on Bean Beasts?
My name is Josh and I’m solo developing my first game called Bean Beasts. Development began around January 2023 though it’s hard to pinpoint when the project officially went from an experiment to an actual game. After doing some sound work for a big studio, I wanted to see if I could sidestep from the TV industry into games. I found most jobs required knowledge of an engine which is why I started learning Unity. Unity became my new game, I was obsessed and found it very fulfilling to make things. It didn’t take long to decide I would try and make a full game.
What is the current demo version offering and will you upgrade it for the Steam Next Fest in June?
The current demo is always being updated with improvements aligning to the ongoing playtesting for the full game. I’ll find something fun to add in the lead up to Nest Fest to encourage players to give it another go – probably access to an extra Endless map.
Can you walk us through the core gameplay loop of Bean Beasts? How do the evolving Bean Beasts and trap upgrades tie into the strategy?
Bean Beasts is a chaotic Tower Defense game where you collect new beasts, traps and upgrades after every level. Bean Beasts are your hero units and get stronger and evolve over time. Each level you choose a selection of Bean Beasts and traps to defend against waves of monsters. As enemies can have multiple resistances/characteristics you’ll have to consider which Beasts and Traps work best. Beasts each have unique abilities you can trigger after a cooldown, Traps also have unique upgrade paths which can completely change their element and attack style.
What inspired the beasts’ designs? How many of them can we use in one playthrough?
The inspiration for the Beasts mechanically is a mix of the hero units in Kingdom Rush combined with creature design akin to Pokémon or Tamagotchis. They start off small, weak and also bean shaped, then get exponentially more powerful as you level them up and they change form and gain new attacks.
They’re deliberately quite vague and basic in design and are named accordingly, for example Cactus, Frog or Ghost. There’s no real reasoning behind this other than I find it amusing. Some designs take inspiration from specific real life animals, the Dog is based on my own dog when she lays upside down with her teeth poking out, and the Frog is based on the Black Rain Frog because I find them hilarious. As you progress you can unlock additional inventory slots and take up to three Beasts with you into the levels.
The game offers a lot of content: endless mode maps, multiple difficulty settings, and diverse enemy types. How did you approach balancing these elements?
Balancing has been an ongoing process with a lot of help from playtesters who volunteer to help improve the game. I have my spreadsheets calculating how the Towers work and interact but with so many variables it’s hard to predict which ones are over or underpowered. I’ve been testing the game incrementally and adjusting over time so that by the time I release there should hopefully be no need for any major rebalances, unless players find some way to break the game.
Honestly I try to make each tower feel overpowered when used correctly. This leads to an “aha!” moment where players work out the full utility of a particular beast or trap and hopefully will result in people having fun trying out different combinations.
Were there specific design choices you implemented to maintain fresh, non-repetitive gameplay?
There are a few key ideas I use to try and keep gameplay fresh. I make sure players unlock something new after every level, but on top of that there’s also an in-game shop with additional unlockables that players can revisit and play around with. Note these are unlocked using gems you earn by progressing through the game, it’s an in-game currency and there’s no in-app purchases; everything is included in the game.
Each level has unique challenges which are completely optional. These award bonus gems and make each level a little different and can get players scratching their heads trying to solve problems beyond just “place towers, shoot enemies”. In the early levels the challenges also double as indirect lessons, for example an early challenge is to set enemies on fire, which you can do by upgrading the Ballista into it’s first upgrade path or by unlocking the Dragon from the shop.
The worlds are broken up with boss battles, each with some mechanical twist to keep players on their toes. Small bosses use the environment, large bosses change the environment. There are new enemy types introduced which get more challenging as time goes on. First you deal with stronger enemies, then enemies with shields, then enemies who target your boxes, enemies that can fly, are immune to fire etc.
I deliberately change up the enemy types to encourage players to experiment and diversify tactics. Each world also introduces enemies with new mechanics too, such as turning invisible, stunning your towers or regeneration. All this is to say that with each level there will be some new set of challenges to overcome.
The Steam page mentions 2 damage types, 5 elements, and 7 status effects. Will you be adding more? How do you plan to support the game post launch?
My plan has always been to release a full game, so everything has been calibrated and balanced on that. That means everything is included on release, there’s no in-app purchases, pay to win or paid DLC expansions planned. I will also maintain and update based on player feedback and will hopefully be able to re-invest some of the money into paying for additional translations. I also plan on doing a port to Switch and Mobile after the PC release.
Further down the line, I can add additional endless maps to the game (for free of course). I may try to add additional features like a leaderboard, but this would depend on how viable it is to maintain and whether there is a demand from players.
How difficult will the bosses be and will there be certain ways to defeat them?
All the bosses have unique counter-attack patterns and the world bosses also manipulate the environment to their advantage, each boss encounter should be memorable and a spectacle. The game doesn’t tell you what the boss will do so players will have to go in and face the surprise head on. I was playing a lot of Elden Ring when I made the first few bosses and I think that may have resulted in them being a bit too difficult.
The bosses difficulty generally comes from the optional challenges, this means players can choose to make it hard for themselves, or pass through to continue the story. Because you’re always unlocking new powerups, abilities and inventory slots it’s always possible to come back to a boss or challenge later.
What’s been the toughest part of developing Bean Beasts so far?
When I started this game I had never written code before and I was totally reliant on tutorials and google. Debugging would sometimes take days but I always managed to figure it out in the end, which was very satisfying. Also wrangling with input system, UI systems and save systems. I was a complete noob so things kept breaking and I’d have no idea how to fix it.
I’m glad I went through that because now I have a lot of experience. I can now design a much more effective/efficient save/UI system which will perform better and not take months to create. I recently did a game jam where I essentially recreated the framework and UI for Bean Beasts, but in only a week rather than the many months it took me the first time.
You’ve mentioned custom music, artwork, and sound effects. Did you create these yourself, or collaborate with someone?
My normal day job is working as a sound engineer and video editor, so creating sound effects and music was probably the easiest part for me. I also did a lot of drawing growing up, I enjoyed going to the art rooms in school and was always doodling silly animals and creatures. I love working with pixel art because it reminds me of the Megadrive and Gameboy.
I’m very lucky because although I never studied or trained for game design or using a game engine, a lot of skills from my day job transfer over, such as knowledge of frame rates, resolution, file formats, using animators, keyframes and digital interfaces. I also do a lot of QC work which has been beneficial, I’ll record footage of my game then watch it back frame by frame looking for things I can tidy up and fix.
Hrvatski 
English (UK)