I think the show is like me and Steven hanging out and playing games together, or hanging out and watching anime together. It's an interactive experience, not just for you and the game, but for you and the people you're with in the game. In terms of the way you forge relationships around the cartoons you like and the things you're a fan of, and the things you're drawing fan art for, but with a game, it's different. Sugar: Yeah, and, oh my gosh, so much, and I think in a different way because you are participating. Do you feel like video games do that too? Is that just as important? You've spoken a lot about how cartoons can impact kids too, and that's a very core idea to Steven Universe. Reinterpreting that now and living that dream in the present. Being able to revisit now, but not going back in time.
There were early thoughts of going in a pixel art direction, but I thought that the nature of the show, the feeling of the show to me is all about the dreams we had as kids and the media we had as kids, but we how saw it and how we felt about it. One of the things we really looked at early on when we were trying to figure out the style of Attack the Light, we looked really closely at concept art for old Super Nintendo and Nintendo games, because we wanted the characters to be that simple and that iconic, but we wanted to execute them as we would now. It was going to be a different format and was going to have a different feeling, so we really zeroed in on that feeling, and like, how do we make it simpler and sweeter, and feel like those games we grew up playing together. Sugar: For me, right off the bat, I wanted to make sure the games were different, that they felt like the show even though they weren't like the show, was more important to me to feel like the show. When you're making transmedia properties, and you have amazing and passionate fans like Steven Universe, how do you make sure these games bring them what they expect? Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island had a unique, storybook-like look to it. Ian Jones-Quartey, who ran the show with me for the early seasons, he played it all, but he was more of a Sega household, so he's introduced me to all of that in my adult life. Some of my earliest fan art was Ocarina of Time. me and Steven just poured over Ocarina of Time. The color palettes, and the early stuff we looked at. Aesthetically, the show is really inspired by Yoshi's island, which is one of my favorite games ever. Sugar: The show is based off my relationship with my brother, and playing video games together was a massive part of our childhood. I know they influence the show a lot, but I would love to hear about when they really started to inspire you. I want to talk about your background in video games. Steven and the Gems are always having off-screen adventures, and I think being able to play those adventures is even more fun than seeing them all in show form. It's like, "Yes! It's finally a chance to see her fight with that sword!"ĭ o you feel like the game is a good chance to flesh out characters fans don't get to see as much in the show and that you've always wanted to give opportunities to? Sugar: I love that Connie gets to fight with that sword a lot, and we don't get to show it that often in the show, but you know it's happening all the time. It feels like, from what I've played, loyal to the ideas of the show and things fans to dive into. Sugar: I got to play a demo of it a few months ago, but this is my first time playing it in this state. So what do you think of S teven Universe: Save the Light right now? Polygon sat down with Sugar to hear about not just this game, which she’s heavily creatively involved in, but also her other gaming inspirations. Now Steven Universe is getting its own second video game - Save the Light - and it’s a title that feels completely true to the show. But all of her favorites feel a bit like her hit Cartoon Network show, now in its fifth season: charming, unique titles that play with concepts like empathy. Her tastes skew to the indie, obscure side, with a lot of Nintendo classics thrown in for good measure. That’s not a surprise about many of the people featured on Polygon, but the creator of Steven Universe still plays or engages with games all the time.
Rebecca Sugar thinks a lot about video games.