Abandoned project: Band-kun/Beatnik for Playdate

Back in November 2020 I was exploring the PC-98 back catalog, and stumbled across a strange game called Band-kun. Strange in that it’s a 1-bit black and white game on a platform that was capable of colour, and also because it’s a hybrid adventure/management/music/rhythm game. I was smitten.

The Idea

I was already developing for the Playdate, a modern 1-bit platform, and it struck me as the perfect opportunity to create a remaster of the game. So, I set my sights on securing the licence. The original title was developed by Koei—Japan’s equivalent to Electronic Arts—a giant now known as Koei Tecmo, whose owners are worth hundreds of billions. The game itself is credited to one of those owners: Yoichi Erikawa, who used the pen name Ko Shibusawa. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be easy.

I published a thread about the game and my prototype on Twitter, introducing the game to the West, which remains my most popular post and thread of all-time (~20 years, for me) at over 450K impressions. I also mirrored the thread as a blog post which is no doubt an easier read.

The idea for the remaster was to not remake the original game at all, but rather to take the vibe and bring it into the modern era. So there were no plans to use the original music, or perhaps even the original graphics. I would leverage modern device capabilities and input methods to create a totally new experience a million miles away from the limited original game from 1990.

Challenge Accepted

A couple of days later, 18th December 2020, Cabel Sasser of Panic reached out:

“Hey Matt, I love a good challenge — do you want me to actually try to make contact with someone at Koei? Regarding Band-Kun? (Philosophically, the idea of reviving a long-forgotten PC Koei title is just enormously interesting to me ahhahah)”.

By 25th December 2020—thanks Santa!—Panic’s guy in Japan, Noby, had a breakthrough finding contact details and sent an email to Koei. Their reply came quickly on 27th December 2020 when a lovely person in Koei’s IP management department replied:

• they knew of the Playdate and were waiting patiently to pre-order
• they had the licence for the Band-kun game (music to my ears!)
• there was an outstanding question about the music rights
• and some remaining business questions for Panic to answer

The project then became in need of a budget to be set: for both the licence and for me to build it. Even with this discussion happening in late December 2020, it was suggested that the game could feature in Season 2. And that, unfortunately, was the last I heard of it. Sad, and surprising, but true.

Not one to give up so easily I submitted the game twice, kind of, in pitches to Panic.

Open Pitch: Band-kun

• June 2022
• to reignite the licence discussion
• a reimagining of the original game for a modern device
• as a team effort with musician and tools programmers; to hit a deadline
• suggested budget was included
• pitch pdf (191 KB)

On 1st May 2024 I sent a message to Panic stating that I was still interested in making the game and to check the status of the project, but never received a reply.

Season 2 Pitch: Beatnik

• July 2024
• an all-new game
• let’s forget about the IP
• completely revised and redesigned
• as a solo endeavour; I was confident I could complete the new scope myself
• no budget was required
• pitch pdf (185 KB)

Go/no-go

Neither of the pitches were successful. There was no further discussion of the licence from 2020.

Regardless, I decided that I would continue working on the game and release it myself. This was the big project I was working on pretty much exclusively from May 2024 to October 2024. You can see elements of it in my New World and Band-o-matic tech demos.

In August 2024, I took a two-week break from working on Beatnik to develop Bender 2: Bend Harder, an expanded version of a game I originally made in 2012. As part of that project, I integrated some of the tooling and library code I had built for Beatnik to test and validate a few of the technologies and concepts. And that was the end of that.