Bug Fables - How to Write a Great Story

MAJOR SPOILERINOS AHEAD!
Though its claim to fame is a revisitation of the classic Paper Mario formula, Bug Fables stands out in its own right as game with storytelling prowess. Today we'll talk about how this game exhibits good pacing, effective foreshadowing and character development, and tight coupling of lore and story.
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[@jokerkirby7051]

I think it’s extremely fitting that mothiva wasn’t even a one-note character on your chart. She didn’t deserve to be on it.

[@MrSpartan993]

She doesn’t deserve to eat the dirt off the bottom of my shoes.

[@Endriu192]

I found in mothiva funny as Jessy and James from Team rocket. Like she's a kinda jerk, but still has good parts

[@SammysCreations]

If I ever get my hands on a zasp and mothiva plushie. I'll crucify mothiva. And burn her to then sacrifice her to our Lord and Savior Vi. Then I'll keep Zasp for myself :D

[@madelynnmurdock4929]

This story manages to be great while being so simple. It's the first RPG I can think of where I can say "yes, the villain could've been built up better" or something like that, but the great part about this story is its not about the villain or saving someone. It is about three characters creating a found family. Vi has dealt with the least, but she was loved and accepted by Kabbu and Leif even after they found out how she acted towards the bees in the hive (they weren't much better either). Kabbu lost his closest friends and grew very attached and protective of Leif and Vi as a result, getting closure and a new family by the end. Leif is considered an "abomination" who doesn't have his old family anymore and isn't even technically alive, yet Kabbu and Vi never treat him like a monster and love him as one if their own. The Usurper didn't need to be this amazing villain because it was never about him. He is just simply a final triumph for our ragtag group of amazingly developed bugs. That's what I appreciate about this story, because I hardly see games where main characters have their own personalities, goals, and stories. Hell, despite controlling Kabbu, the man not only hides his past from his friends, but from the player as well. The trope of found family is one of my favorites, and this game is just so comforting. I love it more than anything.

[@Loner098]

Something to note about the Wasp King is that his backstory can also be found in the Bestiary in his bio.

[@AliluluMillion]

I love that the plot twist was that there wasn't one, I thought it was gonna be like "Oh Hoaxas is actually the good guy and Elizant is an evil bitch" but no, he's just evil and you beat.

[@daridon2483]

I honestly thought you would give the sapling to elizant I, she wakes up and turns out that SHE is the evil bitch, and her kindness was all a facade

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

I also liked the idea of Elizant not being evil, just incompetent and overcompensating for it. A character who's just plain bad at their job (and not comic relief or a faceless mook) is surprisingly rare in most media.

[@giantsalamander2296]

a very nice point in the character developement is, that the main characters don't know each other before the story, so you get to know them as they get to know eachother and they can give you a lot of background lore while still feeling like organic conversation between them.

[@kylestubbs8867]

11:04 Hands down, the funniest "Spy" description in the game.

[@kaleta9483]

Not only is bug fables an amazing game sadly buried under mainstream big studio games, but your videos and channel are also incredibly underrated. it's kind of sad to see truly great youtube channels and games to just get un noticed by plenty of people. please to more videos like this, these videos are amazing, and keep up the good work.

[@dylratner]

Glad to see you like bug fables the world always needs more people to give this game the credit it deserves.

[@Nick_Lyston]

Also, the venus fly trap platforms are nice forshadowing for the character. They will eat you, but you respawn right away so they are not a real threat, and ultimately, they are there to help you progress.

[@TheShadyBoi]

That climax for kabbu could not have come at a better time for me. I was on the ropes about to get destroyed by a hard mode centipede and kabbu just decided to save the group with a full heal. Yeah gameplay experiences are different for everyone, but the way it happened for me made me love kabbu

[@elgatochurro]

His arc was the only one to be concluded via combat

[@Hilversumborn]

Same, I understand some people don’t like it, but I personally loved it.

[@GustavoIto]

Also add the fact that he is a northerer bug, we haven't come close to the entirety of hs backstory

[@gavinli1368]

@@elgatochurroyeah that’s kinda interesting. Vi’s arc was a big side quest chain, Leif’s was exploring a hidden area, and then Kabbu’s was combat based. All kinda separate and unique from one another.

[@gavinli1368]

@@GustavoItofingers crossed we get a sequel someday of exploring the northern lands? Or the place overseas where the fruit looking people come from.

[@lasagna3289]

I can’t believe the forbidden recipe was actually a weapon of mass destruction

[@TheCasualTheorist]

I think you are the first to notice. Have a Glazed Honey on me~

[@BlazeMakesGames]

Yeah bug fables made me realize that what I want from a new paper mario isn't actually the partner system, but rather just fun gameplay and well written characters. Like yeah as you mentioned Paper Mario has a terrible habit of basically forgetting about all of your partners once their respective chapter is up. There's a couple of exceptions like Vivi who gets an arc that spans multiple chapters and even gets more story beats over time past their chapter, and that's probably why she's such a fan favorite. But the vast majority don't even exist until their chapter is up, and then once it's up, they might as well not exist anymore. And it's not that having a character only have a story for one chapter is a bad thing, but the problem is that by having them in your party, it creates the expectation that they would have some kind of plot relevance through the rest of the game. But if you're introducing a new character with every new chapter, that makes it difficult since you have to primarily spend time introducing the new character first and telling their story before you consider going back to the older ones. And by the time they reach the final chapter where they stop introducing new characters, there's so many people in your party that revisiting them all for more than a line or two becomes untenable. And to make the problem worse, the only character that is always guaranteed to be in your party from the start to the end, is Mario. Who is mute and basically not allowed to have a character arc, since he's Nintendo's golden boy and he can't exactly not be a hero from the start, so there's not really anything for him to learn or change with an arc. Meanwhile Bug fables suffers from none of these constraints. By having a smaller party of only 3 bugs instead of 7 party members + Mario, they can spend a lot more time on each individual one and still have time to have some recurring NPCs on the side. They also Introduce all three right away in chapter 1 with some pretty good pacing so that you have time to get acquainted with each one. And then they have time to give each character their own focus for various parts of the story since they don't have to worry about continually introducing more party members over and over, and again thanks to the smaller party size of fixed characters, they can also have more specific character interactions between each other. Thinking about this is what made me realize that I actually like Bug Fables more than Paper Mario, even TTYD. By all means I love both games and TTYD will always be a classic, but Bug Fables just improves on the formulas from that game in a lot of ways without losing any of the charm.

[@Phe0niz]

I think Bug Fables story was alright, probably one of the better ones I've seen in an RPG, but anyone I talk to about the game did also state that they were surprised Elizant wasn't the 'surprise antagonist' from her daunting appearance, impatience, and unfriendly demeanor. To have the menacing mask come off as she explains her true motives of someone who is certainly humbled by their role in the kingdom turned out to be a pleasant surprise as what I had thought was a thinly veiled menace who would discard us once she got her way, turned out to be her projecting her insecurity.

[@Frytoons]

This games combat is also so intensely satisfying that when I see gameplay of battles my fingers feel an urge to press something

[@huntertw]

When I clicked a link, I have to admit I did NOT expect something as quality as this!

[@Reinoiro]

On my first playtrough i put on hard mode medal right away, and even hard hits for some of the earlier chapters, since i already mastered TTYD, and i didnt regret this at all. Each battle took dozens of attempts, so each victory felt very impactful. When time came to fight The Beast, i struggled a lot, it was the hardest challenge game threw at me so far, and when scripted part began, my heart was beating, i was very nervous and Beast taking out Vi and Leif felt very natural, since Beast was absolutely crushing me anyway. So that moment really stuck in my mind

[@GustavoIto]

same! that part is more impactful if you ramped up difficulty in any form during your playthrough

[@Reinoiro]

​@@GustavoIto Oh wow i completely forgot about this. I could've phrased it a lot better, but i still believe it's a lot more believable of a character moment when you are on your last legs already and get jumpscared like that. The instant heal is kinda cheesy but overall when you as a player feel pretty much the same as the character in the moment it makes it viscerally memorable

[@GardenVarietea]

I've never actually seen people complain about the "99 damage from Beast" part! It felt really neat in my opinion. Though, Kabbu's whole "talking about his demise" thing was a little on the nose. I've also seen a similar thing argued about how quick everyone was to put everything on Vi during her trying to ease things with Jaune; however, maybe just cuz of how fun the rest of the game was, I never really noticed them.

[@cheesy6122]

Great video! Personally I liked Kabbus arc in the swamp and saw it as a hype moment when he had that sorta powerup thing,though it might be cause im a fan of animes like DBZ like you stated this moment was similar too

[@Twisted_Logic]

S tier video. You really hit the nail on the head! Also: that ending is painfully relatable

[@OLLAY_]

Really entertaining and interesting video! And you made me laugh with Crisbee's character description at 7:50 xD

[@MrDrBoi]

Nice video! You definitely captured a lot of what makes Bug Fables great. The only thing you talked about that I somewhat disagreed with was the commentary on the Beast, because I thought they did a good job planting seeds from the beginning of the game to set that scene up, so it didn't seem too contrived to me. Other than that, really agreed with almost everything you said and I love to see more Bug Fables content!

[@elgatochurro]

Better than paper Marios tbh, just cause they all have personalities

[@IUseRandomPfps]

True! This game definitely has writing and characters down pat.

[@elgatochurro]

@@IUseRandomPfps they simply cant give Mario a personality because eog mass appeal

[@supermario863]

I WANTED THAT COLLECTORS EDITION BUT I PLAYED THE GAME WHEN IT CAME TO GAME PASS SO I MISSED OUT ON IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[@GamerFourFun]

Awesome video! A lot of times videos like this can tend to be long, and sometimes rightfully so. However it's great to have one 15 minute video to point to that perfectly sums up why I love the story of this game. Really well done, and even throws in a critique about Kabbu's story which I like and agree with. His arc with The Beast did always feel a bit off to me, but I do like the post-game scene with him. Again, great job!

[@memorableman3709]

I definitely do think its a bit different than the other two, since he literally has an anime moment, but I personally enjoyed it and didn’t feel detracted by that. If anything I wish they developed it a bit more, because seeing him sit down in front of a grave he made for his former companions and simply talk about how he’s doing and how he wishes they were still here was such a gut-punch.

[@GamerFourFun]

I think like you said, really could’ve been developed more. Who knows, if we ever get Bug Fables 2 (and assuming we still have Kabbu/Leif/Vi), we could always get some more back story with Kabbu. There’s definitely a lot about his character I think could be unpacked. That post-game scene for him was really nice, yeah.

[@memorableman3709]

@@GamerFourFun Apparently, the devs said that they are planning to make a sequel, but they’re gonna take their time with other projects first. So, it will happen, just not anytime soon

[@poisonedmaple6874]

@@GamerFourFun the devs confirmed that bug fables 2 will take place in the eastern lands (aka where tanjerin came from) and that kabbu, vi, and leif will not be the main characters

[@bandicootsauce4569]

I hate that people are determinedly avoiding and shunning Bug Fables just to spite Paper Mario fans, because even taking Paper Mario completely out of the equation, Bug Fables is still a good game in its own right.

[@mercenarygundam1487]

9:55 I laughed harder than I should

[@GHeinz]

just finished my second playthrough. what a joy of a game. i want a sequel so bad.

[@Andyblarg]

Paper Mario TTYD has an amazing story, yet Bug Fables OUTSHONE IT!

[@ferretlord7051]

The bit with the beast was actually alot smoother for me. I was playing hard on my first play though. The only paper mario I played was sticker star. I actually had my party go down naturally so that whole segment went alot smoother. Also on my second play through i noticed alot of the foreshadowing more. Like Kabbu asking “is this karma” when vi leaves him to die. First time it went over my head, second time it hit me like a sack of bricks.

[@troo_6656]

One thing I found out about this game that while the plot is quite good and lore interesting it's the characters who pull the weight of the story. Well characterized with explained and explored traits and motivations. And honestly just summarizing one encounter is not doing it justice. This is a game that is better experienced because by the time you'll be finishing up the final chapters you know these characters and the payoffs that the game pulls are earned.

[@crestlich]

You deserve more subscribers for the quality of videos you're putting it.

[@thedoc3727]

Crisbee is our true overlord

[@nipodil]

this game, despite having so much gameplay and story to give already, left me wanting more. everything is so interesting. and the music MMMMMMMMH. i'll go nuts the day a sequel/prequel is announced. definitely top 5 goat.

[@DaRealReidingz]

“Hell yeah, praise Venus. She’s great.” I can’t- Also, I freaking LOVE Vi. She’s adorable

[@XX-sp3tt]

11:48 With Legends of Arceus, it's pretty much canon now that it is. And humans were at the mercy of the frogs who could show leafs as sharp as knives until they could figure how to catch and tame them.

[@user-yr6ko9ns9i]

At first I thought Queen Elizant II was gonna be a twist villain

[@bucketofice1777]

Dude, you gotta tell me where you found that sweet remix at the end! Nice job with the video btw

[@TheCasualTheorist]

Why, I made it myself, friend! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZCtgHqPlNqAbJI

[@nfcrafty5847]

Wow amazing work

[@Hilversumborn]

The Iceberg method is something more writers should remember. If you explain everything, the mystery/adventure is gone.

[@anonymousnlonely3315]

Always good to look at vids like these while I’m studying, definitely checking out your other stuff!

[@chibi3593]

great video!

[@treeross]

A computer engineer with a passion for writing? Sign me up. Going for EE/CE/CS degrees right now. It sucked having to retake a bunch of prereqs since i graduated high school in 2014 and just started taking classes in 2022, but it's been fun so far.

[@dylanthomas385]

The beast whoop my ass like nine times befor I got to the power up part but that mad it satifing after try so hard I thought I was good to loss then power up ant it felt great

[@Iamverykarpy]

13:59 wait are these all the game developers

[@mimi.sues.]

Yeah :)

[@gavmcdangle1893]

Super under appreciated channel. Your work is seriously amazing! Always excited to see a new video by you.

[@Christian-gr3gu]

13:07 damn what medal was that!

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

Favourite one: lowers your defence by 1, but if you get hit your allies gain +1 attack for their next move each. Also works on attacks blocked by Leif's bubble shield and poison damage.

[@jerdman]

This game is just incredible. The soundtrack is fantastic too!

[@Yuti640]

Me and my friend have a joke headcanon that Crisbee commits every war crime ever

[@screenwatcher949]

great video man :)

[@screenwatcher949]

the iceberg method is fascinating to me

[@noahmoscoso9464]

Now I want the game

[@GeorgeMarionerd]

I really hope there's a sequel someday...

[@birdboy16]

I’d play that

[@ej97746]

They have said that there will be eventually but another game will come first and it’s going to focus on different characters

[@Hilversumborn]

@@ej97746IMO, That’s a good thing. Team Snakemouth story as the protagonists is over. They could still make cameo’s or play a role, but let other characters/bugs shine.

[@IBigDickI]

​@@HilversumbornFrom what I heard, the main developer of the game said in discord that Team Snakemouth will have a small easter egg in the sequel, but not outright show up.

[@AidenTurner17]

Leif's story arc was a complete surprise to me they did a great setup to what was to come especially with the scorpion fight

[@Nadav_Vardiel]

I deeply love this game

[@MrSpartan993]

A glorious game!

[@dylanthomas385]

I’m hoping they make it a seires

[@onekingdom1955]

Fantastic game

[@TheCasualTheorist]

Arrangement at the end was composed by me! Shoutout to Tristan Alric for a great soundtrack kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZCtgHqPlNqAbJI

[@johnnykage4179]

You talk about Kabbas conclusion as if this whole game doesn't scream anime. Lmao

[@StoryTeller796]

Honestly, this video is really great at being comprehensive into each aspect of the game's story. However, after a point I do wish I could see something or hear something so my depressed brain wouldn't turn into the depressed mush it already is. However, that's not on you, I'm just personally crazy and need a lot of high-maintanence to keep my attention, you did a really great job with this game.

[@helton3425]

Damn, Was i just unaware of the depth modern indie games are getting, or are they just so cult classic-esque that its easy to miss them if you dont pay attention. A few i can think of are Toodee and Topdee, Bug Fables and now this year, Pizza Tower. With Celeste and A Hat in time, they somewhat atleast broke through to the Mainstream, while these hidden gems reside hidden to the masses

[@GwainSagaFanChannel]

There is not a physical copy right only digital. Would be cool limited run games to release a physical copy.

[@baggyhton]

I am going to be honest I thought the queen was going to be a villian

[@JezElectro13]

1000th like!

[@demopan1067]

Lore books are cool and all but i despise doing a quest, and all i get is a book, that Im probably not gomna read

[@iamLI3]

nice , of course someone who knows about bug fables would also know about Okami....

[@dylanthomas385]

Hon of war streches likble but ya

[@authorbat5562]

Don’t you tell me what I should or should not like.

[@bobbobbobbobb]

Small nitpick: Leif uses masculine pronouns, not neutral pronouns.

[@meteor9573]

I think he's saying "they" in a plural way, referring to the moth and the cordyceps.

[@rockinmusicquarterly12]

why not both?

[@Dexuz]

If there was one thing that let a bad taste in my mouth was the very final moments of the story; right after meeting the Wasp King in the kitchen it all went downhill, and it's a real shame since the build-up we got was massive... and yet we end up with Shadow Queen 2.0. Of course, a story-point being expected doesn't make it bad, on the contrary, several writers tend to abuse these "twists" just to only end up as head-scratchers for the readers/players, as twists only really work if they had been finely foreshadowed; but man, after all this lore, all these characters, the game would have really benefited of having a Dimentio-like final antagonist and closing moments, albeit entire sections of the game would have to be rewritten in order to fit such a thing there. But at the very least, I can appreciate how the story made it all very personal, I did not expect such development for Elizant and Leif, it truly is their story, not that of the Wasp King.

[@IBigDickI]

All you said was perfect, but I gotta disagree with that Kabbu Story arc slander. As somebody who played through the entire game in hard mode and adored Kabbu as a character, seeing this beetle not give up and change his motivation for revenge to protecting those he cares about now so he doesn't repeat the past was super well executed and showed how determined Kabbu really is about defending other bugs/friends. I was hyped af!