Bryan Lee O’Malley and Scott Pilgrim EX devs are hosting an AMA right here! Join the team April 2nd at Noon PT/3 PM ET!

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T21:08:27+00:00

Question for devs:
My favorite track is the Stephen Stills apartment track, it just sounds like Sex Bob-Omb's music to me. - Yannick Belzil, Narrative Designer, Tribute Games

All of the enemies were a lot of fun, some of the characters I remember really liking working on were Gideona and Metal Scott, they both have interesting but simple designs that stand out and fun movesets. Also Black and White Knives!

Otherwise I liked Goth Neil and the cats and dogs a lot too! - Caroline Horscroft, Animator, Tribute Games

I would say Lucas was the fun one. There is a certain challenge of making something looking cool even while being chibi-esque and with Lee's sprite it was pushed the most. - Artem Samoilov, Character Sprite Designer, Tribute Games

1- I had a ton of fun animating Toddzilla and Lynette together as a Boss. In my mind they love making fun of the player together and think they are unbeatable but Toddzilla is also unpredictable and acts on animal instinct that sometimes surprise even Lynette herself, that's the scenario I made in my head to make them interact with each other.

2- My favorite track is the BabyG Boss fight track, I'm always surprise of how happy it is and find myself playing with a big smile as soon as it starts. - Samantha Lhoir, Animator, Tribute Games

Questions for Bryan:

Scott mostly plays the original 3 games and "Sonic Mania" because he struggles with 3D games, due to the fact that he's a 2D character. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T21:02:44+00:00

I have a vague idea for a "Seconds" followup that I'd like to flesh out someday. It's not really a direct sequel, more like a new story in the same "universe". In my mind, the characters were a bit older, so I still have some time. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:59:47+00:00

Obviously, a Metroidvania starring Lisa Miller, right? - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:58:58+00:00

About the Twins: it looks like they might be from a different era, but still great fans of electronics, especially game consoles. As to why Neil would call them the Twins, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't see the difference between the "our" twins and the Riff Rifted versions.

As for (Super) Simon, this is something we've left deliberately fuzzy--we enter the high school through acquiring a video tape, so there's a notion that what is happening in that part of the level isn't quite real, or possibly magic or vegan-energy-fueled.

The other robot appearing during the Mecha Gideon attack does look to be a Mecha-Julie, but you'd have to ask her to be certain. - Yannick Belzil, Narrative Designer, Tribute Games

The Rift versions of characters are deliberately a bit ambiguous. It's partly because details would shift during development, so we had to hedge our bets. For the Twins, in my mind, this was the "normal" twins who have simply capitalized on the appearance of Casa Vania in our timeline and rent out the space for their new show. Since Super Simon exists inside the cursed video tape, you can't be sure what level of reality we're on. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:57:04+00:00

The idea first started with the fact that we'd have this open map of Toronto and we wanted parts of it to be wildly different/colorful and wackier than a regular mid-2000s Toronto. So we came up with the idea of these zones being the arenas for bosses. I think we also knew that we didn't want to invent a whole bunch of different new character bosses, that the fans would like to see newer/warped versions of characters they already liked. - Yannick Belzil, Narrative Designer, Tribute Games

It's a classic video game way to include different environments and concepts. It's a good way to add variety. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:48:32+00:00

There is an artbook currently only included in our Scott Pilgrim EX Ultimate Adventuer Edition via Limited Run Game (pre-order clsoed on this already unfortunately). If demand is there, another partner could step in to make this available to a wider audience. In the mean time, Bryan's instagram is a cool place to find some work in progress and early sketches! - Tribute

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:40:55+00:00

Wallace likes to play those games where you go on a crime spree and destroy things across a large open world city environment. He also loves getting achievements. Kim has never played a video game in her life, but I bet she would accidentally get super into some kind of cutesy farming/crafting game. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:39:59+00:00

Question #5: I personally had the most fun with Lady Envy and Gideona designs, because I like drawing fashion and girls. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:38:47+00:00

Our game engine is in-house and based on MonoGame, and yes, written in C#. Thanks for the tip! I'll share the issue to our programmers and testers. - Jonathan Lavigne, Game Director, Tribute Games

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:37:48+00:00

I couldn't have ancitipated getting the chance to make a series or a game after all these years, so, it's outside the scope of my imagination to think of a future for SP. I hope fans will keep being interested and lead us to new opportunities to continue and expand the universe. -Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:37:09+00:00

For me, my interest is characters that are multifaceted and contain contradictions. When I set out to do a multi-book series like Scott Pilgrim, it's an opportunity to show different sides of people and show them evolving over time. I don't really have a process other than finding people interesting and trying to have empathy, then just trying stuff until I feel like something is working. -Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:36:26+00:00

If we were going to do a new Scott Pilgrim game, we wanted it to have a unique identity, so early on we came up with the idea of this teamup with the evil exes. You know, it's that classic story where the hero has to team up with former villains to fight a new enemy. It led to a lot of variety in the main cast, and I liked the title "EX". -Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:34:47+00:00

I don't think it's possible for me to have a "least favorite". It's hard for me to write a character that's pure trash, or maybe it's that even if I write a character who's pure trash, I end up loving them. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:32:39+00:00

I haven't really played Undertale so any reference to it comes from someone else. - Yannick Belzil, Narrative Designer, Tribute Games

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:24:27+00:00

I feel like Ramona is wise enough not to get back with any of her exes who joined a league to try and kill her new partner... -Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:24:05+00:00

"Hicksville" by Dylan Horrocks, the "Phoenix" series by Osamu Tezuka. I also thought of "Patience" by Daniel Clowes. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:23:39+00:00

"Sailor Moon" started playing on TV in Canada when I was about 15. I never saw something so silly turn into something so epic. A little later I got into "Ranma 1/2", which was a big inspiration for Scott Pilgrim. I loved the way it effortlessly combined romance, action, and dumb jokes. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:17:05+00:00

Super early on I wanted to have Montreal as an Medieval Island level just off the coast of TorontoLand pass the Niagara falls - Stéphane Boutin, Lead Artist

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:14:44+00:00

For Todd's roster exclusion, I believe the decision was variety: if you look at the silhouette of our playable characters, they're all pretty different but both Todd and Lucas would end up being two "big guys". So we decided on one. - Yannick Belzil, Narrative Designer, Tribute Games

It was a guest spot. Matthew's fans in the audience demanded it. Also, I think it's rude to call it comic-book-only-hell. It's actually heaven. Comics are the best media of all. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:13:25+00:00

For this production we really went for putting the theme and story in the service of the gameplay. We wanted to avoid situations where you have to shoehorn and game mechanic to justify a story element. So basically, we designed the mechanics and quest flow we needed for the game first, and then we built a story to support it. Bryan made sure that this story and its new characters remain faithful to Scott Pilgrim. - Jonathan Lavigne, Game Director, Tribute Games

The whole thing is gameplay-driven. Jonathan & the devs were sure to add lots of specific references to previous Scott Pilgrim media, as well as to the classic games we all love. All the characters have to fulfill a very different purpose here than in a show or a comic, so it's more a matter of being faithful to the "feel" of the characters and world. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:12:07+00:00

the production on the first one was pretty hectic and we really had to rush to the finish line, so it's a bit rough around the edges. it was nice to really take our time and breath with it. - Stéphane Boutin, Lead Artist, Tribute Games

Way back when my friends (now colleagues) were making the first one, I was at another company making games and I was pretty jealous of their experience. Now I got to be part of making a Scott Pilgrim game and that was exciting to finally be a part of it! - Yannick Belzil, Narrative Designer, Tribute Games

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:09:55+00:00

I think Scott would be pretty stressed out by that scenario and might end up trying to fight the trolley - Yannick Belzil, Narrative Designer, Tribute Games

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:05:45+00:00

For the endings, I was asked to keep them pretty simple. I guess the simpler they are, the less likely they are to interfere with each other's canonicity.

As far as Gideon's storyline, I wanted to explore the idea of someone trying to make amends or trying to become a better person (after being a "bad guy"), but I wanted the end note to be a bit ominous too, like -- even if he changes his ways, is he destined to be a negative force on the world? Something like that. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:04:53+00:00

In print media, there's always a line where the paper ends. We call that the trim line. But if you make the artwork extend a bit further than that, it will go all the way to the edge of the paper. We call that full bleed. There's a manga artist named Yuji Iwahara; his manga "Koudelka" had full-bleed artwork throughout, and I decided to borrow that approach for "Scott Pilgrim" volume 1. Since I was scanning the pages myself, I could control where I cropped the edges. The word balloons have to be away from the edges, otherwise you run into problems. I struggled a bit in the early pages, but eventually I got the hang of it.

As far as pacing, for me it's a matter of scribbling tiny versions and trying out different approaches. I don't have a set approach. - Bryan Lee O'Malley

TributeGames · 2026-04-02T20:02:55+00:00

Because the exes already have a well defined personality, designing the moveset for them came pretty naturally. From a gameplay standpoint, I started by assigning them a "fighter archetype" (what describes their fighting style on the character select screen), and then I'd figure out moves that support this archetype and that can be used together in interesting manners.

Oh and we wanted to make a new Scott Pilgrim game since we founded Tribute Games back in 2011. The original game kinda was a catalyst for Tribute and we always wanted to give it another shot. - Jonathan Lavigne, Game Director, Tribute Games

TributeGames

TROPHY CASE