Interview with Dan Cebulski from RabidTomato Games about SynthEscape

SynthEscape is an upcoming synthwave-themed shmup that blends classic arcade principles with modern ideas about flow, atmosphere, and accessibility. By intentionally flying close to enemy bullets, you slow down time, creating a gameplay rhythm where risk and calm go hand in hand. In this interview, developer Dan explains how gameplay, music, and art direction were designed together from the very start, and how SynthEscape aims for focus, readability, and that rare zen-like feeling shmup fans keep coming back for.

Dan, for readers discovering SynthEscape for the first time: how would you describe the core idea behind the game, both in terms of gameplay and atmosphere?

My short pitch is: SynthEscape is a synthwave-themed shmup built around grazing bullets to fuel your bullet-slowing time-manipulation shield. The closer you fly to enemy fire, the more power you gain to slow the storm of projectiles. The game is heavily inspired by synthwave/outrun aesthetics, from the music to the art direction.

For a longer answer, SynthEscape is a classic-style shmup, meaning it follows design principles and ideas from the early arcade games (Gradius, R-Type, Darius) that had a focus on achieving a high score. I've always been a fan of the almost zen-like state that these types of games make you feel when you get good at them. I've been developing games as a hobby for a little over a year now and wanted to put my own spin on the same shmups I played as a child. I've had many a great night spent alone listening to my favorite synthwave bands (The Midnight, FM-84, Timecop1983 and Futurecop!, for the record). I really want players to vibe with the music, art direction and high-focus gameplay to help achieve that state of emotion.

The core principle is the bullet grazing mechanic - everything revolves around this gameplay loop. There is a time-slowing circle around your ship which slows any enemy bullets that enter. When you graze bullets, the field grows. This brings a risk/reward mechanic for those meaningful micro-choices of good game design. Do I intentionally put myself in danger to graze a barrage of enemy bullets? Or do I play it safe, putting myself at risk later on with a smaller shield against an even bigger barrage of bullets?

That is the moment to moment challenge. On a larger level, there's the scoring and shield mechanics. Grazing 100 bullets in a row without being hit increases your score multiplier. You have a single-use shield that can tank one enemy bullet, but resets your graze counter. This shield also recharges when you hit 100 bullets in a row.

In summary: Graze bullets, bend time, break the future (and don't die in the process). I do understand that this is a genre that is not as popular (mostly due to difficulty), so I did include a mode called Vibe Mode at a friend's request. In this mode, you cannot die, but your scoring is still affected whenever you get hit. I'm also planning on implementing other modern features like the ability to start from any stage you've previously reached - the aim is that everyone can see the game through to the end.

At what point in development do SynthEscape’s gameplay and synthwave identity truly lock into each other, rather than existing as separate ideas?

Honestly, I never saw this idea existing without its synthwave identity. The working title was SynthCircle, and the very first ideas came to me when I was listening to the soundtrack that would eventually make up most of the final product (Ovani's synthpop album). The rest came fairly naturally. For example...

...What should the story be? Let's base it on a plot inspired by a synth-heavy 80s sci-fi movie. One with themes of rebellion and youth, but keeping it simple. In SynthEscape, you play as a teenager who lives in a world where humanity has been subjugated and imprisoned under a ruthless AI and its endless machine army. You steal the time bending weapon named the DLRN-88 (an obvious inspiration from my favorite movie of all time), strap the weapon to your cobbled together starship, and escape into orbit to destroy the AI overlord. The story is often light in these types of games, but I wanted to instill the desperate, yet hopeful sense of rebellion.

...What should the art direction be? This was also obvious. We needed the outrun-style sun at sunset. Purples and blues all over, giving that wistful sense of Mono No Aware (a Japanese term describing the bittersweet awareness of life's transient beauty, a gentle sadness or wistfulness at the passing of things, and a deep appreciation for fleeting moments. I'm thanking The Midnight for introducing me to this term.). This was actually a challenge for me at first, which I'll continue in the readability question down below.

How does synthwave music influence the rhythm and difficulty of core mechanics like grazing, movement, and time manipulation?

Synthwave lends itself very well to the 80s cultural zeitgeist, which lended itself very well to the time-manipulating aspects of movies like Back to the Future. The music is a very core part of setting the mood for the experience. I did play around with elements such as your time-slowing field pulsing to the beat or timing enemy bullets to hit a specific tempo, but it never felt quite right. The game is still not complete and I'll probably return to the idea, but I think I settled on the music invoking a mood instead of being an active participant in the play. That said, each stage has different variants of the same track based on the mood to set. For example, the highway level (Level 2 - Sunset Speedway) starts with a very low intensity as the player is intended to enjoy a brief moment of respite from escaping the city, gazing into the sun over the purple ocean. But by the end as the engine kicks in and your speed increases to break through the final wave of enemies, it has all backing tracks ready and playing for the heroic feel.

This shmup genre usually has music that is much faster-paced. SynthEscape does have a few of those tracks, but I wanted to play around with it. I don't want players to feel stressed out.

In a genre where readability is critical, how do the neon visuals and music help reinforce player focus instead of overwhelming it?

This was a big challenge. Enemy bullets and your own hitbox (which is the tiny glowing dot on your ship) being easy to read is critical. Most shmup utilize a lot of tricks such as elongating bullets to more easily track their direction (bullets that are perfect circles can be hard to read), including rougher outlines, utilizing particle trails, grouping bullets in a single line to show direction, etc. BossHog has a fantastic video on readability in shmups.

One very common trick on bullet readability was a non-starter for me. Generally, these games decrease the saturation of the background so bullets in the foreground are brighter and easier to read. This was an absolute no for me - the color-heavy background art brings so much to the vibe. So I chose an art direction of making sure the backgrounds were mostly based in darker blues and purples, whereas the bullets themselves were based in light greens and light blues. The contrast worked out very nicely, but there was a LOT of iteration and trial and error to get it right.

There's also the elements of small bits of polish. Whenever an enemy is about to fire, there's always a telegraph (the enemy will flash purple, or a quick animation will play). Sound cues for when a laser is firing up or an enemy is locked onto the player are the loudest things in the audio mix. And then I have to make sure it feels the same on my big PC monitor or on a smaller device like the steam deck. Animations that don't require as much attention, like enemy explosions when they die, have a bit lower alpha component (they turn semi-transparent). 

So much of game development is just changing numbers. Make a laser startup noise a little louder, play the game, see how it feels, then go back and tweak it. Witness an enemy explosion, tweak the transparency, try it again.

Do specific tracks, moods, or tempos directly shape level design or boss encounters, and if so, how?

Absolutely. The idea of "a shmup where grazing bullets slows them" was the initial thought, but music for each individual level existed before I even planned out the level. The real high intensity tracks are saved for the boss fights, or for specific high-intensity parts of gameplay. Even in this genre, you can't have a constant high state of stimulus overload. There has to be moments to breathe, or the player gets exhausted. The music goes a long way in helping set that mood.

What feeling or state of mind do you want players to experience most when gameplay and music fully come together in SynthEscape?

First, I want them to enjoy the vibes. Witnessing the outrun sun come over the purple ocean while the highway travels below them, giving a slow sense of relief that level 1 is over and they've escaped the city. Feeling a quiet sense of determination as they race into orbit. 

But eventually, I want them to be fully engaged in a relaxed, zen-like state. The thing I love about shmups is how, after a certain point, the music and sound design and art direction and gameplay all come together to create a moment where you are able to fully enter that zen-like state. Kinda like Neo at the end of The Matrix - you've learned the level so well you can handle anything it tosses at you. It can be very relaxing to learn the routes and patterns, figuring out the optimal way to get the highest score. It feels good to notice your own improvement in your skill. And that's what keeps many of the players coming back for yet another run. 

I'm somewhat new to the Synthwave scene, having discovered The Midnight in 2020 via a random youtube video and devouring all of their albums. I used to travel a lot for work, and I remember the feeling of just driving around in the dead of night to an album. Or taking the train on a vacation and watching the world go by. Or flying high above in an airplane while the tracks played on my earbuds. There's a calming nostalgic sense that synthwave music and aesthetic bring to me.

Thanks again for having me Sander! I hope to have the game fully completed in early 2027. Wishlists are super important, they're by far the best thing you can do to help a game get recognized by the steam algorithm, so as a solo dev doing this as a hobby it would be much appreciated.