Interview with Anxious Noob Games – Bean Beasts
Every now and then, a game comes along that completely takes over your spare time, and for me, Bean Beasts has been exactly that. What starts as a simple tower defence quickly opens up into something far deeper, with constant unlocks, evolving strategies, and that all-too-familiar “just one more turn” pull. But what makes its story even more interesting is how it came to be. What began as a small experiment from Josh Bailey at Anxious Noobs Games quickly snowballed after a surprise appearance on Pixel Pitch, turning a prototype into a full-blown passion project and eventually landing on Nintendo Switch. I caught up with Josh to talk about Bean Beasts’ origins, its many inspirations, and the challenges of building a game that’s as addictive as it is ambitious.
How did the idea of Bean Beasts come about?
I decided to make a Tower Defense game because a) I love them and b) I thought it would be easy for a first project, and I decided to merge elements of many of my favourite games into one, so the aesthetic of early megadrive, gameboy and SNES with the gameplay of Bloons (upgrade paths), Plants vs Zombies (always unlock something new + abilities), Orcs Must Die (wall pathing), Pokemon (evolving monsters and elements) and others. I wanted the variety of mechanical traps so I decided to use two “tower types” of Bean Beasts and Traps.
Can you tell us about Pixel Pitch? How did you appear on it, and what did it do for Bean Beasts’ development?
My cousin told me to apply, I had no knowledge of streaming so I had no idea how big an event it was when I was accepted onto it. Before Pixel Pitch my game had about 300 wishlists and was very much a “prototype/experiment” – but after I was on the show I got about 4000 wishlists overnight and it went up to about 6000 over the following days, so I decided to take it more seriously and it became a passion project.
Was it always a goal of yours to bring Bean Beasts to Nintendo Switch?
Before Pixel Pitch, no. I had to come up with something to request money for as that was the premise of the show. I found out the cost of a Nintendo dev kit and decided to ask for that and when I got the funding, I then officially took the Switch port as a real goal.
Can you tell us about how Bean Beasts came to be featured on Nintendo’s Indie World?
To be honest, I just emailed Nintendo and asked if they could support my launch on the Switch and they replied.
What is the biggest lesson learned from developing Bean Beasts?
The project is extremely messy and not designed well from a developer/coding standpoint. In one sense this is fine because the game functions as it should however it does restrict my ability to add more content or make big changes, especially to the UI, because if I make any big changes it could break things!
Were there any major challenges or setbacks during development that shaped the game?
A lot of things were tricky but I always managed to work it out in the end, I thought many times, “ah, I’ve hit a wall, I can’t be a developer because I’ll never be able to fix/finish this” – then eventually you work it out. I had a lot of trouble with UI, translations, the input system (clashes between controller and mouse inputs), graphics, maths and physics issues, performance issues… the list is endless. What I would say is that each of these issues was to be expected as I was tackling these things for the first time and relying on internet tutorials and documentation to work it out as I went along, I at least now have learned many valuable lessons I can carry onto my next projects.
For players jumping in for the first time, how would you describe Bean Beasts in your own words?
I tried to make it colourful, fun and nostalgic, and also you can play methodically (take your time) or hectically (auto-start on).
Do you have a favourite “Bean Beast” or strategy that you personally love using?
I think flippers are underrated. You can one-shot some of the tankiest enemies if you upgrade it enough and it also works to stun, slow down and group enemies together, making other AOE attacks more effective. Who doesn’t love flinging enemies off the edge anyway?
What advice would you have for someone wanting to create their own game?
It’s both not as hard as you might think and tricky and time-consuming, but there’s plenty of resources out there for free (YouTube!) so anything you want to make, you probably can so why not try it!?
Thanks again to Josh Bailey from Anxious Noobs Games for sharing insight into the development of Bean Beasts, from its early beginnings through to its release on Nintendo Switch.
If you’re ready to give it a go, you can find Bean Beasts on the Nintendo eShop here: https://ec.nintendo.com/AU/en/titles/70010000106508
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