Back in 2022, as soon as I saw Jake Macher’s early artwork and the demo for his first major release for the Game Boy Color: Sofia The Witch: Curse of the Monster Moon, I knew we were in for a treat. The colorful sprites reminded me a lot of the platformers and cartoons I grew up playing and watching, and the reason for that became clearer as he told me a bit about himself: “My name is Jake Macher, I’m from Canada and I’ve been a professional 2D animator for over 20 years. The first 10 years of my career I worked in TV animation.” Jake has also been a video game fan his whole life, buying his first system, a Game Boy, at the age of twelve with some birthday money.

The jump to making his own Game Boy games is a story familiar to a lot of the developers in our community: “What inspired me to start making Game Boy games was discovering GB Studio, and wanting to learn how to make pixel art. I felt it was a match made in heaven. The studio I worked at had a 1-day game jam, that was the first time I used GB Studio and made my first pixel art. I won Best Design. I had caught the bug and loved it. I had been wanting to make a game about a witch and felt that was going to be my next challenge, a short 3 week game. Over 4 years later that small game turned into Sofia the Witch: Curse of the Monster Moon.”

Beyond his jam games in GB Studio, Jake has worked on a bunch of commercial titles over the years, his first game “was a Facebook game called Zombie Misfits. A zombie themed tower defense game. It had lots of fun cartoony blood and gore. I was responsible for all the animations. Unfortunately, like most Facebook and web games you can’t play it any more.” He also was responsible for two bigger titles, YoWorld and My Singing Monsters, and a few titles under his 2 man studio label, Bacon Bandits: “Letter Quest is a kind of scrabble-like game where you play as a grim reaper battling ghosts and monsters by spelling words. That was a mobile game that was also released on the switch and playstation. Tap Tap Dig and Tap Tap Dig 2 are both mobile idle games about digging to the core of different planets.”

With a title as ambitious as Sofia The Witch, there were bound to be some challenges. “I started on Sofia the Witch right when GB Studio 2.5 beta was released and the platformer scene type was added. Early on I spent most of my time just getting a handle of the game engine and trying to figure out what it really was going to be. Early drafts had you exploring big levels looking for 5 animals, you couldn’t exit until you found them all. It played pretty bad.” After that discouragement, he finally found inspiration that became the core gameplay mechanic: “Eventually it developed into a game about turning monsters back into your animal friends.”

A year of development passed, and finally GB Studio 3.0 came out and eased the rest of the process. “It added so much of what I needed, being able to flip actor sprites was a big one. It took me about 3 months to rebuild the game in 3.0,” he explains. “I then wanted to make moving around the levels fun. That’s when I came up with the bubble bounce spell, that took a few weeks to get just right. My biggest challenge was really underestimating the amount of work needed to really finish and polish the game to a level I was really happy with and younger me would have wanted to buy. I’d say the last year of development was just polishing and bug testing.”

When asked about the games that inspired him to make Sofia the Witch, Jake had many iconic titles to reference. “My biggest influences are my favorite games on the Game Boy: Super Mario Land 2, Link’s Awakening, and Kirby. I was trying to get a mix of Zelda and Mario’s overworld with their fun locations and secret areas and NPC’s to talk to, I even added in a side quest.” With platformer development, it’s always about balance and determining what type of feel you’re going for. Jake gives us some insight into his process: “I wanted the platforming feel of Mario, where it’s just fun to move around the levels. I’m not really good at harder, tight platformers, so I looked at games like Kirby for the level of challenge.” A retro platformer being made in a modern world gave him the opportunity to make some changes to the formula: “There are no game over’s, you just get knocked out of the level, you’re free to replay as many times as you want. With my background in TV animation, I wanted to try and make Sofia feel right at home both on the Game Boy Color and Saturday morning cartoons.”

Sofia The Witch: Curse of the Monster Moon has a lot to offer with many traditional platformer level areas, from the dark and mysterious woods of Forest Land to the hot and dry, quicksand-filled wastelands of Desert Land. Jake suggests his favorite level is Cloud Land level 2, as it “has some really fun movement with updrafts that carry you upwards. Bouncy mushrooms to jump on, and the whole level is a silhouette with fun lighting flashes.” He also explains another fun aspect of the game is how many secrets he manages to pack in: “There is a fishing mini game with a few secrets in it. There are 5 mini games, 4 where you are on your broom, and one where you play as a cat.” Being a completionist comes with bonuses, too. “If you can complete all of those you get an item that will make the final boss battle a bit easier.

Secrets come in all forms, including some additional bosses off the beaten path. Jake has included 4 hidden mini boss fights, an “homage to the shadow link fights from Zelda 2. If you can find all those secrets you get a special screen at the end of the game.” There’s plenty of replayability, too, as there are “multiple endings based on how many friends you save in the game from none to 320.” It turns out that there are six possible endings in all!

Jake has some advice for anyone starting out their dream project with GB Studio: “I know I didn’t take this advice, but just start small and don’t worry about how the game looks at first. Try and find the fun. Once you’ve found that and are happy with it, then worry about the look. Finishing a game is hard, but so rewarding. The GB Studio community is the best bunch of developers and people online. The discord is a great place to start. It’s full of amazing people always willing to help and answer any questions. There is no gate keeping, unlike what I’ve seen at other game dev studios. The other advice I have is to share your work as widely as you can. I know I don’t do this enough, but other devs and gamers want to see what you’re working on, and how you’re doing it.”

Now that Sofia the Witch is done, Jake spoke with us about some new games on the horizon: “The first one is a Cute’m Up called Pop’n Raccodile where you play as this crocodile raccoon thing and you shoot octopi and turn them into candy. Sounds weird but it works.” He also goes into some ideas for a Sofia the Witch sequel: “The idea I’m leaning towards is Sofia is brewing a potion, something goes wrong, and it’s up to her to fix the mess caused by it. The working title is Potion Commotion. Just like with Monster Moon things will change and adapt as I go.”

Finally, we asked Jake if he had anything else he wanted to share with our readers: “I have a few things. If you’re interested in making Game Boy games, just try it. GB Studio makes it so easy. I do not have a mind for coding and I’ve been able to make fun games. The best feeling is playing your creation on actual hardware. The other thing I would like to share is just for people to give Sofia the Witch a try. I really do feel like I’ve made something special and feels and plays like a game that could have been released alongside the great games on the Game Boy. I have a sizable demo you can try out over on itch.io for free. If you find it fun and want to play the full game you can buy a copy from Bitmap Soft. There are 3 versions you can pick from. A digital ROM download, a physical release, and one of the best collectors editions I’ve seen for an indie Game Boy game that comes in this amazing spellbook box.”

A tremendous thanks to Jake Macher for the interview. Sofia The Witch: Curse of the Monster Moon is now available as a digital and physical release from Bitmap Soft.