Lillymo Games is a small indie studio dedicated to recreating the halcyon days of retro gaming, especially the types of games that you would've found on the NES or SNES. Their upcoming title, Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege channels the wonderfully macabre aesthetic of the early Castlevania titles. Barry Johnson, founder of Lillymo Games, graciously allowed me the opportunity to interview him about Saint Slayer. Please enjoy.
I'm familiar with your work and Lillymo Games, as a longtime listener of Last Stand Media. But, for those who aren't acquainted, would you mind introducing yourself and what games you've worked on?
Barry- My name is Barry Johnson, I started out as a solo indie developer 8 years ago as the founder of Lillymo Games. My first release was Perils of Baking, a platformer game inspired by Mario and Donkey Kong. Then from there I started teaming up with more people who now handle art, music and writing on the games. My next release was Habroxia, our first 2D shooter. After which Colin Moriarty joined Lillymo Games and we made Twin Breaker together, a brick breaker game played with 2 sticks at once starring the hosts of the Sacred Symbols Podcast. Since then we have released a few new entries in these series: Habroxia 2, Tri Breaker, and Super Perils of Baking. Our next game will be a new series for us called Saint Slayer.
On its surface, Saint Slayer looks heavily inspired by the NES Castlevania titles. I see some DuckTales influence in there too, with the bouncing mechanic. These are tried and true platforming styles that you can rarely go wrong with. There are so many different styles of 2D platformer, especially when pulling from this era. You have to factor in floatiness, how precise jumps need to be, whether or not you can run to jump further (e.g., Mario), knockback, etc. How do you decide which games to pull from and which don't fit the style of game that you're making? Are there any other intentional influences in Saint Slayer that you could speak on?
Barry- For this project I specifically wanted to make a game that felt like Castlevania (1). I understand why some of the choices made in that first game were changed over time, so as to allow for more control, and to make things easier for the player. However I really appreciate the approach taken, and the experience created by the stiffness and restriction of that first game and wanted to create something similar in that way. So the movement speed is strictly locked, when you jump you are locked into your momentum from when you leave the ground, when you get hurt you experience knockback, to go up or down stairs you need to push up or down. All of these rules or choices allow us to lock into a gameplay experience that we don't see as often in games anymore, something I wanted to bring back.
The Steam page for Saint Slayer indicates that the game will have some really cool features. I see unlockable upgrades are in the game. What kind of upgrades can we expect to see? I also see that you can "find and befriend animal familiars." Can you elaborate on this at all? Are these just little companions or will they serve functions? Can they assist Rudiger in combat? What types of animals will we see? I think I speak for everyone on the planet that we'd love to see a small version of those sprinting rickshaw skeletons as a companion.
Barry- The upgrades in the game are something we are still fine-tuning so I won't be too specific about everything that will be available. But the idea is that it will reward the player for collecting orbs in the game. This will be an in game drop that carries over across playthroughs. We want to provide ways for the player to make it easier or provide unique experiences, tips for hidden collectables and as you brought up some of the familiars. So this won't be the sort of upgrades where you can make your character stronger and stronger by buying perks in that way. But there will be a few things you can do to help out without breaking the core gameplay experience. As for the familiars themselves we have revealed the first of those will be a raven that flies around and collects pickups for you, and will destroy hazardous pickups to protect you. I don't want to spoil what the others will be just yet.
Can we dive into Rudiger some? It says that he was a soldier who became a farmer and now has to take up arms again. What's his story? His silhouette strikes at least a passing resemblance to the iconic Bloodborne hunter. What was the design approach like for our hero?
Barry- After the War of the Grand Alliance, Rudiger returns home to seek peace living as a farmer. Until the presence of Father Pacer brings about the events of his adventure in our game. I started out with a basic idea for a medieval hero with a spear, from there Colin locked in on the time period and setting for him, along with our intro to Rudiger's story. Then the artist on the game Josh Gossage took on the task of coming up with his look for the game and we saw him come to life.
What kind of arsenal will Rudiger have access to? I assume the titular Spear of Sacrilege, which is supposed to be the Spear of Longinus right? What else might he have at his disposal?
Barry- You start the game with a simple dirk, until you earn from your first boss fight the Spear of Sacrilege. Over the course of the game you will find more relics that increase the power of the weapon and evolve its appearance and size. It will be your weapon for the rest of the game, you will not be changing it out for others. Instead you will learn new moves for it, as well as obtain temporary powerups that allow it to act in other ways. I wanted it to be a big part of the game, so it stays with you the whole time. This way we know the player will have it for things like situations where you need to throw spears into walls, using them to climb upward.
I know two player co-op has already been announced, and I've been told that the team jokingly refers to the second player's character as "Rudigreen," who looks like a green clone of Rudiger. Is there any lore behind Rudigreen, or is it just a gameplay mechanic to allow for another player and there's nothing deeper happening? Are there any other playable characters planned?
Barry- Rudigreen is a joke name for him, but we don't actually think of him as being a second character. He is also Rudiger, but green. We have discussed doing some fun changes for playing as him by default. We have a password system that allows the game to be played with different modifications. So the idea of playing as the green Rudiger would have some unique gameplay changes to mix things up.
I've heard that Lillymo Games have a shared universe. Is this true? And could you hint maybe at how Saint Slayer connects to your more lighthearted games like Super Perils of Baking? Or your explicitly sci-fi games like Habroxia?
Barry- Saint Slayer is in no way linked to any of our past games.
Assuming Saint Slayer is successful, which I think it will be given the public reception to the announcement, do you see this story getting fleshed out further in sequels or DLC? It could be neat to see a 16-bit take on this incredible looking world.
Barry- Yes, we would very much like to release more games in this series. The original plan for a game in this style started out as a larger metroidvania style game. However as we discussed beginning work on that project, I thought it would be cool to make a more linear action style game first before we take on the larger project. I have had so much fun working on this game that it would be my dream for it to do so well that we could not only make that metroidvania style sequel, but perhaps also continue to make more linear action style entries in the series as well.
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| Shout-out to Lilly <3 |
The last question I have for you is a lighter one, and one I ask of every developer that I get to interview. What is the story behind the name of your studio?
Barry- Lillymo was a nickname for my pet Jack Russel Terrier Lilly. She was my best friend and meant the world to me, so I thought that I wanted to share my feelings of love for her through my work in some way if I could. I had to say goodbye to her last year after 18 great years together, but she will live on through our work and as our company namesake going forward.
Thank you Barry for taking the time to answer my questions! Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege is set to release in Q1 2026 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series and PC via Steam. There is also a demo available on Steam.
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