Super Meat Boy Interview: Team Meat

Last week at the Nintendo Summit, several game companies proudly showed off what titles were coming up, both in retail and downloadable formats.  Among them was Team Meat, the duo behind the upcoming WiiWare/Xbox Live platformer Super Meat Boy.  This was easily one of our favorite games at the show, with its tricky wall-jumping tactics and its decidedly retro design.  We couldn’t get enough of it.

So, we decided to sit down with Team Meat, consisting of Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillen, to discuss the upcoming project.  Warning: the interview is pretty frank, so watch out for bleeped curse words.  (After all, it comes from two guys who have cartoon images of themselves in underwear on their business cards.)  And keep an eye out for a special comic/sticker giveaway too!  Because we like handing out Meat.  (Hoo boy.)

Q: Can you guys identify yourselves, please?

Team Meat: I am Edmund McMillen, and I do stuff.  (other member)  I’m Tommy Refenes and I don’t do anything. (laughs)

Q: I wish I had something like that on a business card.  That would be awesome.  “My name’s Robert Workman and I’m not doing anything.  Nice to meet you!”  (group laughs)  Now, how did the concept of Super Meat Boy come about?

Team Meat: Meat Boy came about when I was making a Flash prototype with a friend of mine named John McGinty.  We wanted to make a game in a few days that was based off of vertical platforming.  The placeholder cube was red, and I had a character called the Meat Ninja, and he just turned into Meat Boy.  We went from there.  That was basically the start of it.

Q: Now did you actually make a physical model of the Meat Boy, or was it just in your mind?

Team Meat: Meat Boy was…in my mind. (laughs)

Q: Because we were saying, wouldn’t it be good to make a physical model of the Meat Boy just to see what it was like? 

Team Meat: My mom did make a Meatloaf Boy.  It did not turn out well.  (laughs)

Q: I’m sure.  How many stages are in this game, and how many challenges are we gonna have to overcome to beat Meat?  (That sounded horrible.)  To finish the game, rather?

Team Meat: To finish the game, you’re gonna have to play through five-plus chapters, spanning over 300 levels. 

Q: And there’s actually easy ones and then if you want to go all tough, the baddie flips you off and say, “Hey, try these”?

Team Meat: Yes, there’s the main world, which is the main game.  I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but most people can probably get through it if they try hard enough.  But then there’s a “Screw you, this is hard” parallel universe, which is the dark world, and it parallels all new challenges for all those existing levels, and those are very, very difficult.

Q: Now are there any rewards for those who make it through these really, really tough levels?

Team Meat: There are tons and tons of rewards.  Real rewards, not little Achievements or digital badges.  You will get new characters, more levels and a bunch of really substantial awesomeness.

Q: Yeah, from what I saw, it’s not just Meat Boy in this game.  You also have what appears to be a Pong paddle and some weird dude that farts rainbows.

Team Meat: (laughs) Yeah, yeah, we have the Pong paddle, dude that farts rainbows, and then we have Guy That Collects and then Guy With…(laughs)

Q: Time on his hands?

Team Meat: Guy That Sticks, there’ll be Guy That Teleports, there’ll be Guy That Kinda Floats, there’ll be Guy That Grabs…

Q: Grabs what?

Team Meat: Dude, he’ll grab whatever he wants.  He’s a slut.

Q: How’d you come up with some of the twisted level design in this game?  Because I played through a good chunk of the Nightmare levels and, I gotta tell you, you guys are twisted…in a good way.

Team Meat: I don’t know. (laughs) 

Q: You just sat around thinking, “How can we really piss people off?  Oh, yeah, let’s put saw blades everywhere!”

Team Meat: Yeah, I mean, realistically, it’s a play on the old Mario games and stuff like that, where people just accept the fact this guy’s walking along and there’s a sea of spikes, and all the other random shit that’s just there.  It’s there ‘cuz it’s there, that’s why it’s there! (laughs)  Why’s it there?  (points over at Team Meat fan boy Derek) How come there are rusty needles above Derek’s head, and yet he’s jumping over these saws that are flying under his legs?  Why?  Because “f**k you”, that’s why. (laughs)  What just happened there, Derek?

Derek: I dunno.

Team Meat: What’d you do? 

Q: Who’s that?

Team Meat: This is Derek, and Derek’s nobody special. (laughs)  No, Derek is the main troll over at Tigsaurus.

Q: Is he the Dude That Grabs?

Team Meat: (laughs) Actually, as a matter of fact, he is.  He’s the Guy That Grabs.  So look for Derek in Super Meat Boy, and saw him in half with a saw blade.  That’s great.

Q: How long has this game been in development for?

Team Meat: We’ve been in development for about a year now. 

Q: And it looks like it’s just about ready.  From what I heard, it’s gonna come out on Xbox Live first, then WiiWare and PC.

Team Meat: It’s hopefully gonna come out around the summertime, all in the same month.  Tommy also claims it’s also gonna come out for the Mac.  But it’s not gonna come out at the same time as the others because I don’t care. (laughs)

Q: I also love what you do with the replays, because you see every time you die in the replays simultaneously.

Team Meat: (laughs) It came from the idea of…well, there was this video called Quantum Mario, and it was 128 tries in the same level with Mario, and with the modified emulator, it stuck them all on top of each other.  I saw that and said, “S**t, we can do that in real-time!”  It’s just an awesome reward for just dying a s**tload in a level.

Q: Yeah, no doubt.  You’ll be like, “That’s where I messed up, that’s where I messed up…”  All my life’s failures all at once!  We also see a bunch of homages from classic games like Street Fighter (see trailer below) and Castlevania, especially in the game’s intros.  How did you come up with those?

Team Meat: This game is Ed and Tom, as far as what we grew up with, the games that we played when we were growing up.  If we could go back in time to when we were 13 years old and we had the tools to make the game that we do now, we would’ve made Super Meat Boy a lot sooner.  Because it’s old school, and it’s just what it is. 

Q: So whose idea was it when your meat splatters on a chainsaw blade and it stays there throughout the level? 

Team Meat: It’s both Tom and Ed, because we were like, “Hey, it should splatter all over the place!  When the blood hits the saw, it should totally splatter.”

Q: I like that, because if the replays with your multiple deaths doesn’t remind you of your failure, these blades stained in meat blood obviously will.

Team Meat: Yeah, you paint the level with your own demise. (laughs)  Your own death!

Q: So what’s next for Team Meat after Super Meat Boy wraps up?  Like a break?  Or a Meat Vacation, rather?

Team Meat: Yeah, a big f****n’ break. (laughs)

Q: Meat break, everybody!  Meat break!

Team Meat: We’re gonna take a meat break and totally attempt to live life. It would also be neat to touch a girl.  (laughs)

Q: Meet a girl?

Team Meat: (laughs)  I guess you’d have to meet her before you touched her. 

Q: Unless you’re the Guy That Grabs.

Team Meat: (laughs) Yep.

Q: Speaking of which, Derek’s over there playing with his Pong paddle!  Derek!

Team Meat: Bad Derek! (laughs)

Q: Thanks, guys.  If the game is nearly half as fun as this interview was, we’re in for a good time.

Team Meat: Thanks!

Super Meat Boy arrives this summer.  Look for more coverage soon, including our giveaway.  As for Team Meat, follow them at their official blog page!  Meat!!