Another Crab’s Treasureis a Soulslike game that puts players in the shoes of an unusual protagonist for the genre. InAnother Crab’s Treasure, players step into the role of a hermit crab named Kril who is on a quest to retrieve his repossessed shell. Cue the game’s trash-littered ocean filled with an arsenal of shells for players to equip, from Soda Cans to Party Hats and beyond.Another Crab’s Treasure’s “easy” modeeven gives its crustacean hero a gun in another hilarious, genre-breaking twist. If an enemy or boss fight proves too challenging, players can choose to take out foes with one hit of their oversized OP handgun. Yet, it’s also clear that this crab still has skills with various attack and defensive maneuvers in the game’s combat.
Game Rant recently sat down with Aggro Crab studio head/art director Nick Kaman and creative director/narrative lead Caelan Pollock to discuss the various combat mechanics inAnother Crab’s Treasure, including Kril’s abilities, blocking and parrying., and more Kaman and Pollock also spoke about some of the bosses and enemies players will face in combat.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Another Crab’s Treasure’s Adaptations and Ability Inspirations
Q: Could you tell me more about Kril’s “Umami” techniques?
Kaman:So, first off, we changed the name. They’re called “Adaptations” now. That’s because that name reflects what those techniques do. You gain these adaptations - like magic powers and spells - by defeating other monsters, othersea creatures. What you’re getting is the evolutionary adaptation that that sea creature possesses and is known for.
For example, you might get the mantis shrimp’s mighty punch as an ability or an electric eel’s electricity, stuff like that. The “Umami” that we’ve been talking about is this life force of all the creatures in the ocean, taken from the Japanese word for a savory flavor found in many seafood dishes. There’s this life force that intertwines all these creatures and will even allow you to do something as magical as using their powers in your own right.
Q: How did you decide which marine creatures to use as a source for these abilities? Were there any that didn’t make it?
Pollock:There were quite a few that didn’t make it. When it came to the abilities as well as including sea creatures in the game at large, I think it was important to us to strike a balance. There was somewhere we said, “Okay, well this is obviously a very cool creature to fight and use its ability.” Like the electric eel, for example. We know we’ve got to put an electric eel in the game or when it came to the pistol shrimp. Actually, the pistol shrimp was somewhere in the middle. We wanted to partly do creatures that were immediately super obvious and partly do weird creatures we saw onBlue Planet,various things for people who are a little more into niche marine life to see and get excited about. The pistol shrimp is not really a great example.
But a good example is the Bobbit Worm. I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but they’re terrifying. They are these worms that hide in the sea bed and reach out and grab things, and they look absolutely monstrous, like some sort of weird alien creature. That is really perfect for our game because it comes off as a bit alien and otherworldly. It is just a real creature at the end of the day, but it fits in very well as aDark Soulsenemy. It’s just this nightmare creature coming to kill you. There’s a lot of stuff like that in the ocean. We don’t really have to reach super far. And I think that same attitude was used for the skills, but with a little more emphasis on “What do we want to see from gameplay?” We don’t have as many spells asElden Ring,so making sure each spell and each adaptation has its own place in a potential play style or move set was really important to us. There’s not a lot of fat in that particular feature that could have been cut. They’re all pretty important.
Q: What about mythical sea creatures - are they in the game?
Pollock:There was actually a lot of debate over whether or not made-up creatures were allowed in the game, either an extinct creature like a trilobite or some made-up monstrosity. I think there are one or two that are similar to an existing creature, but are very clearly anatomically incorrect in some way because it’s cooler. But we don’t have any weird fusions. Everything is inspired directly by a specific kind of creature. We like it that way, but, I mean, stuff gets really, really weird. There are some bizarre creative liberties.
In terms of what those creatures can do - well, magic exists in this world. There are a lot of interesting shenanigans that go on, but we were always more interested, for the horrifying creatures in the game, in taking inspiration from what is really horrifying in the ocean. What is interesting and fantastic. I think it would have hit a little bit differently, in a way we didn’t really like, if we were making stuff up or putting in explicitlymythological creatures.
Defensive Mechanics and Skills Tree Upgrades in Another Crab’s Treasure
Q: You mentioned that blocking is important. How do you approach the balance with parrying and dodging? Some Soulslike games lean one way or the other, so how did you balance these combat mechanics?
Kaman:Again, it all kind of centers around the block, and that lets us have a game that’s a little more forgiving than others, because most moves, you’re able to just block until your shell breaks. There’s a risk-reward element around that, if you’re blocking. You can still dodge and parry in that state. Do you want to take the risk, or do you not? Managing that risk reward is what gameplay centers around.
Q: Could you talk a little bit about the skill trees and the play styles they lend themselves toward?
Kaman:They’re not really discrete paths. It’s not like you go down one tree and it’s drastic. It will change your play style, but you’re not really meant to just go down one path and be that character. It’s more pick and choose what you like. The Way of the Hermit has more defensive skills, and Way of the Predator has more aggressive ones. But it’s something where you may go down any road at any point to make yourself stronger.
Pollock:Although it’s not expected that you’ll complete the wholeskill treebefore the end of the game, it’s definitely very feasible that you might complete more than one track of it in the same file. For a very simplified take on it, Way of the Predator is often skills using your melee weapon or your grappling hook to harm enemies. Way of the Hermit has a lot to do with not just using shells but swapping between shells often. Way of the True Crab is sort of built-in natural defenses. They all have their connections to Umami, in their own ways.
Level and Boss Design in Another Crab’s Treasure
Q: What was your philosophy behind the level design ofAnother Crab’s Treasure?
Pollock:I mean, do we have one? Primarily, we wanted to show off the environment first and foremost. We also wanted different levels to feel like different levels in that sense. The kelp forest, for example, is an area where you’re going to get attacked by a lot of different hidden creatures fighting amongst the kelp and be shot by arrows. Other levels are much more open, and there are other levels where the point is to be very claustrophobic. I think capturing the vibe of what environment we are working with is first and foremost what we went for. The game is definitely not as interconnected as, let’s say,Dark Souls,but it does have that element. We’re interested in creating a world that feelsSoulslike, but isn’t as hard to decipher.
Q: Can you talk about how you approach boss design and difficulty?
Kaman:Most enemy designs in the game, including boss design, are “What’s a funny piece of trash we can give to the sea creature that they can use in an interesting way?” We’ve got the Samurai Crab, who uses a pair of chopsticks. At the start of the cutscene, he unsheathes it like aSamurai sword, but a lot of the fun is figuring out how to make that weapon more interesting than just a stick. So, halfway through the fighting, he breaks the chopsticks in half. So now he’s got two sticks. Great! So it was just thinking in terms of: how can we make this character do something unique? And that’s where the difficulty is.
There’s this rule in Game Dev: if it’s hard for the devs, it’s way too hard for the players since the devs are going to be the best at the game. I think that rule doesn’t apply to Soulslikes. The fun here is that we get to just make the bosses as hard as we want them to be, as hard as they need to be to be fun for us, and then the players will also have to deal with that.
Another Crab’s Treasure’s Terrifying Bobbit Worm Enemy and Soulslike Boss Approach
Q: Can you talk about how you implemented the Bobbit Worm inAnother Crab’s Treasureand how you made its abilities so effectively scary?
Pollock:When it comes to translating creature abilities to in-game abilities, the Bobbit Worm is about as straightforward as it comes. You watch a video of what the Bobbit Worm is and what it does, and it’s like yeah, duh, that’s exactly a f*ckingDark Soulsenemy. As far as translating that to gameplay, the Bobbit Worm was one of the easiest ones. It does what a Bobbit worm does, it exists in real life, and it is absolutely terrifying. So it goes in the game, and it’s also terrifying.
Q: In true Soulslike tradition, are there any super secret, difficult boss players should expect inAnother Crab’s Treasure?
Pollock:We do have a few optional bosses. I don’t know if we have anything that reaches the heights of, let’s say, Malenia, where you’re just going to be beating your face on this boss for hours. That was something we sort of avoided on principle for the most part, but maybe it depends on how good you are. I wouldn’t say we havesecret bossesthat outstrip the difficulty of the mainline bosses by a significant margin. More like, some of the bosses we have made optional are just weird, but I’m not going to spoil anything.
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Another Crab’s Treasure
WHERE TO PLAY
As Kril the hermit crab, you’ll need to wear the trash around you as shells to withstand attacks from enemies many times your size. Embark on an epic treasure hunt to buy back your repossessed shell, and discover the dark secrets behind the polluted ocean.TRASH OR TREASURE?In this undersea society, trash is not only a way of life, but a valuable resource, used for everything from fashion to firearms. But with the presence of trash comes a mysterious infection known as the Gunk, which could spell doom for the entire ocean.LEARN FROM NATUREAs Kril explores the ocean, he’ll gain a variety of Umami Techniques—powerful attacks learned from the denizens of the seas. Punch your enemies with the overwhelming might of a Mantis Shrimp, ensnare them with the horrifying Bobbit Worm, and much more.UNEXPLORED DEPTHSThe ocean goes deeper than one can imagine. Fight your way through kelp forests, coral reefs, sand castle cities, and even the unfathomable darkness of the deep-sea trenches, all in the name of getting back your prized shell.
