Lynked: Banner of the Spark is like a combat-focused Animal Crossing

We chat to Max Spielberg about robots, hoverboards, and following the footsteps of his film director father

Lynked: Banner of the Spark / Dreamhaven

You wouldn’t tell from its bright and breezy looks alone, but Lynked: Banner of the Spark is a dark tale of killer robots terraforming the planet and wiping out organic existence. Max Spielberg calls it an “aspirational apocalypse.”

The son of legendary film director Steven Spielberg, who co-founded the game’s development studio FuzzyRobot alongside Tatyana Dyshlova, spoke to us about how to make serious stakes fun and friendly.

In Lynked: Banner of the Spark, you’ll brawl, build, and befriend. Essentially, it’s a cozy game about fighting and chilling with up to three friends. There are outlandish weapons like hoverboards and sonic musical instruments so you can decimate hordes of robots, but also an engaging town-building element where you use what you’ve acquired to develop your base from metal shack to thriving community.

Read our interview with Max and Tatyana below to discover more about the weapons, story, and inspirations behind Lynked: Banner of the Spark, which is out now in Steam Early Access.

Video Games On SI: Where did this idea grow from, and can you trace its inception back to a source?

Tatyana Dyshlova: The idea for Lynked: Banner of the Spark was spawned early on when Jake Warmerdam our Gameplay Technical Director and Max Spielberg were thinking about how to encapsulate the joy of the Cozy genre but pivot it to a new audience. Games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley are super sticky, encouraging hours of replay - but what would it be like to flip the script and look at that through the lens of the action genre. Where the town you cultivate not only was personalizable but actually boosted your combat capabilities and succeeding in combat helped grow the town.

Max Spielberg: We had the idea of centering the narrative around a society of AI beings very early on - and wanted to keep the essence of a world without man - but see it through the eyes of a Saturday morning cartoon. We called it an aspirational apocalypse, where we could use a lighter tone to dip into serious worldwide stakes - like a group of killer robots looking to terraform the planet, wiping out organic existence…but fun!

The design of the robots is really interesting. Which one’s your favorite?

Spielberg: I love the design of all our characters but if I had to pick, my heart lies with Mason. He’s a surly, gruff contractor bot, but underneath his hard metal shell - he’s totally a softie. Plus, he has a sweet mustache made from a paintbrush.

Tatyana: Brymm, the leader of the Banner of the Spark, because he is the perfect combination of cute and cool and grumpy, but he is also still in development, so I can’t say much more.

What was the hook that grabbed you and made you want to develop this game?

Spielberg: Literally a hook! Early on, we knew we had to have some unique combat mechanics to really get people into the flow of battle - plus, we were interested in how players could utilize the
environment as a weapon.

We designed the Wyre, which is a grappling hook that comes from your robot companion, Buddy, who has morphed into an arm gauntlet. With the Wyre you can pick up and throw environmental objects like projectiles, pick up enemies and toss them into traps or off cliffs and even use your foes as anchor points to leap around the battlefield.

Lynked: Banner of the Spark / Dreamhaven

We built a ton of ways to upgrade and customize your Wyre, both cosmetically and also mechanically - so players can develop really unique play styles that can complement one another in co-op combat scenarios.

For people who already love this genre of game, what for you is the main twist that gives them something they’ve not seen before?

Spielberg: Beyond the unique and stylistic combat flow with crazy weapons like hoverboards and Sonic Battle Instruments - Lynked is a mix between two genres. For action players, there is a ton to sink their teeth into but what we love is that when things get sweaty or frustrating, the town allows people to hang out, socialize, collect weapons and abilities or just relax and go fishing to fill out their Bot-o-pedia with robotic wildlife.

There’s so much to do that filters back into creating more powerful builds for combat missions - but within a chill space that has activities and stories to participate in.

Lynked: Banner of the Spark / Dreamhaven

Steven Spielberg famously had a big hand in developing 2008 Wii game Boom Blox. What did you think of that game, and would you ever like to do a sequel?

Spielberg: Boom Blocks was lots of fun - in fact - he designed that game well before the Wii existed. As a kid we used to make giant block towers at home - then stand back with wiffle balls and see who could destroy their tower first! Of course, the video game took things even further - and while it would be great to see Electronic Arts revive the franchise at some point, FuzzyBot is focused on building our own IP.

This is FuzzyBot’s debut game. What’s the ethos of the company, and what sort of games do you hope to make going forward?

Tatyana: We built the company around tight collaboration, agency and empowerment, purposefully keeping the team small so we can move quickly and stay flexible, while enabling everyone to flex their creative muscle. As with Lynked, we are interested in systems-based games that provide replayability without giant content scope. We aim to continue to create games that surprise and delight for players across generations, whether it’s through bending and mixing different genres’ expectations, or re-imagining world-building tropes.