• Video

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl developer addresses lack of voice acting

In a lengthy interview with Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl's Thaddeus Crews, we hear about the game's development, its growth in the competitive, and address the elephant in the room regarding the lack of voice acting.

Ozzie Mejia

April 11, 2022 4:00 PM

1

The platform fighting world has been welcoming some new entries over the past few years. One of the more high-profile entries into the genre came last year with Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. We're always happy here at Shacknews to talk about these games with their creators. When the opportunity came to speak with Nick All-Star Brawl character designer/programmer Thaddeus Crews, we jumped on it by sending out Wide World of Electronic Sports co-host Rodney Conyers Jr. for a sit-down conversation. They touched on a variety of topics, but the most pressing one involved one of the game's most noticeable omissions: voice acting.

"I have to say, I completely agree with the majority sentiment," Crews told Shacknews. "Not that the game is ruined by it, but it should be expected with these properties. I completely understand. It's Nickelodeon characters. People have grown up with them and identified with them in a medium of online cartoons, which is primarily funny visuals and funny dialogue. If the game has one of those and not the other, just by definition, it will feel more hollow. Obviously, the team worked around this to the best of our ability and I am satisfied with what we've been able to accomplish and I have to absolutely commend the people who are insane enough to mod the game and make it feel closer to what they feel is an ideal experience. But, putting that all aside, I get it. I get the criticism of that. It's entirely valid."

Crews also discussed his journey in the gaming industry and how he went down the road of development, ultimately leading him to work with Ludosity. He also dives into some of the intangible elements that make Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl a fun time, finding the right mechanics that make a platform fighter like that work, approaching individual sessions casually versus competitively, being showcased at major esports events, and more. Plus, he even discusses Ludosity's previous effort, Slap City.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is available now and continues to receive an ample amount of post-release support. For more interviews like this, be sure to subscribe to Shacknews and GamerHubTV on YouTube.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?