Feature: "You Do Feel A Little Intimidated" - BROKENCIGS Discuss Being Scooped On Their Game Concept & NYC's Dev Scene

Behind every game is an untold story, and The Hilltop Funeral is no exception. From adjusting to remote collaboration to having their entire game concept scooped, the team at BROKENCIGS has gone through no shortage of hardships in developing their diabolical co-op coffin carrier.

The Hilltop Funeral, which is currently available in early access on Steam, sees two players piloting pallbearers carrying a corpse in a coffin to a funeral home. Tricky levels and puzzles require tight coordination to overcome while keeping the lifeless ragdoll body in its open casket. This gameplay is paired with a Tim Burton-esque art style, goofy dialogue teeming with dark humour, and a surprising story the developers are keeping tight-lipped about until the game’s proper release.

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After letting us in on news that the game will receive Switch and Switch 2 versions, we sat down with director Luke Li and lead developer Cindy Fan to learn more about the game, their journey, and the realities of modern-day indie game development.

Nintendo Life (Tim Rattray): This may be the first time readers are hearing about BROKENCIGS and its games. Who are you and your studio?

Luke Li: I’m Luke, the director and lead game designer on The Hilltop Funeral, and we are BROKENCIGS. We’re a New York-based indie game studio founded two years ago. We create games based on our passion and what we like to reflect our team of diverse individuals.

Cindy Fan: Hi, I’m Cindy, the lead developer and a designer. First of all, Luke, we formed our company three years ago, because it’s now 2026.

Luke: Oh damn, it’s already been three years?

Cindy: It’s scary to think about.

It’s interesting that you noted your New York roots, as it’s not a city that often comes up in talks of game development. Why choose to move there from China to develop your games?

Luke: For indie developers in New York, people are more focused on working on something they feel they can express themselves with. I’ve always felt that working on your own game meant that you’re using it as a medium to say what you want to say, expressing your own creativity and ideas.

I’m not saying Chinese indie developers are not doing that because I don’t know a whole lot of them, but with the games [they’re submitting to] publishers, it feels like a lot of the time people are just trying to make something that’s going to blow up. And they keep doing that over and over, trying to make something that is in a popular genre and seeing if it all works, instead of making the game they want to do.

With us, coming from China to work on indie games in America, the publisher [Wise Games] believed we could perfectly combine our culture, identities, and backgrounds as Chinese people with our experience doing game development in New York, resulting in something even better.

Cindy: Where I live in Florida, there are few game developer events [unlike the many found in New York City]. Once you leave New York City, you realise how precious they were to you.

That move happened during the development of The Hilltop Funeral, right? How did you adapt to remote work?

Cindy: Back when I first moved to Florida, I felt a lot of pressure being the only team member not in New York. It was back when we first formed the studio, and I had this feeling of, “Maybe they will kick me out.” I moved to Florida because one, the rent in New York is too expensive, and two, my partner is here studying at university. I had zero friends and felt that pressure of thinking I might get kicked out, so for the first few months it was really hard.

We have this thing when we’re working where we have individual Discord voice channels that we stay in while working. So, you can hop into another person’s channel to chat with them. Once we figured that out, it felt pretty similar to being in person where I could turn around and talk to Luke. Now that we’re used to that workflow, it’s become much easier — for me, at least — to adapt to remote work.

Luke: Yeah, it’s all interconnected here. There are so many events happening by Playcrafting, GUMBO, Wonderville, and others. Slowly, you realise that it’s a small but big circle of game developers in New York, since you meet someone at a random gaming event and find out they also go to this other thing you also attend often. It feels good to be a part of this community, whether it’s Indie Game Dev Night or Game Devs of Color Expo. Every time we go to these events, it feels like you’re part of it right away and that really makes us feel like we’re making the right choice to be working on our dream games and pushing ourselves forward in a city that’s full of so many talented people, resources, and opportunities.

When we founded BROKENCIGS, it was recommended that we should found it in Delaware because of tax incentives. We were like, “That makes sense, but having your studio in New York, that’s so much cooler.” We are a New York studio, and it feels better [to be based here]. It turns out we made the right decision because without doing that, we would have missed out on so many opportunities that support New York-based teams only. We were really honoured to attend Tokyo Game Show with Empire State Development.

Let’s talk about the game. How did its development come about?

Luke: [Our friend] Sam, Hailey — one of our artists — and I did a small project back in school that was very physics-based. It was sort of similar to what we have right now. What happened was that at the beginning of last year when we were working on Inkression, which is our 'main' game, we were very focused on trying to find it a publisher. During that time, we thought it’d be nice to take a little breather and work on something that’s lower pressure. We were feeling a lot of pressure with Inkression because the story is very serious, so we thought, let’s focus on something that’s more goofy, stupid, funny, and smaller in scope.

So, we got in touch with Sam and told him, “Hey, we had this idea back in the day and we want to restart it and turn it into an actual thing. Would you like to work on this together?” He gladly agreed.

Right, the game is a collaboration between two studios, yours and Sam’s [Fumigawa Studios]. This seems challenging given that most team members now work remotely.

Luke: There’s something incredibly encouraging about working with people outside our immediate team. They inject new character and insight into the project, opening doors we might not have seen otherwise. Of course, the challenge is finding the right balance. Every studio has its own priorities, and it's our responsibility to manage that partnership with empathy. It’s about finding that sweet spot where the game flourishes, but no one — on either side — burns out.

One of the greatest obstacles you faced in the development of The Hilltop Funeral was having the idea scooped by a few other games.

Luke: It’s really funny because we had the idea, and for years we didn’t touch on it. The moment we decided to start making it, we started seeing all these similar games, like one where you carry a sleepy king. There was this one game that’s exactly like ours in that you’re carrying a dead body inside a coffin, but the gameplay is very different.

It’s funny because the moment you see a game that’s very similar to the one you’re working on that you thought was original, you do feel a little intimidated. But we went to play all these games, and it turned out each’s gameplay was somewhat different. At least, our game is innovative in the gameplay options it offers the players. In a lot of these other games — and it’s going to sound like I’m talking s**t — it’s a lot more about platforming instead of balancing [the coffin]. Our game is a platformer, but the key is that you have to lift the four corners of the coffin and balance the corpse inside.

Cindy: And we also have the dialogue.

Luke: It adds flavour. The two characters have a really interesting dynamic which has been the key highlight to many, many [early access] players. They might complain about the level being too hard or the corpse being too floaty, but they all like the little dialogues these two characters have along the way. It’s very fitting for the vibe and art style we’re trying to go for.

Cindy, what is it about the dialogue that stands out to you?

Cindy: It’s somewhat similar to Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy where when you fail, he says something provocative or kinda stupid. You tone down the frustration by having funny dialogue. The dialogue also shows up when you’re playing, not just when you fail. Because — and not in a bad way — the game is kind of repetitive since you’re trying to do the same task over and over, having that dialogue really adds to the fun.

Also, when translating the game to Chinese, there are some jokes that only work in English. So, I need to replace them with Chinese jokes with a similar vibe.

The game is being developed for PC first, but with the Switch version in mind. Are there any challenges you’re anticipating in porting The Hilltop Funeral to Switch?

Cindy: One thing I’m a little worried about is the aspect ratio. Our artists are really inspired by old movies, so they want the game to be in 4:3. This was forced onto players in older versions, but then we realized that a lot of players—including streamers—wanted to play in 16:9. I feel like we cannot do 4:3 on Switch because it’s already a small screen [in handheld mode].

I think some developers do have different-sized UI fonts for playing in handheld versus docked, so that’s something we also need to consider, especially if we’re going to do something like [a race mode we’re working on] where there are going to be eight players on-screen competing with each other.

Something I want to do is using the Joy-Con’s motion controls to lift the coffin. That would be challenging as well, since I know that’s harder to manipulate than just pressing the trigger buttons.

To me, the game feels like it’s designed for couch co-op with Joy-Con.

Luke: Yeah. A lot of the time when working on this game, I was thinking about college days when my friends and I sat on my couch using a super small monitor to play Overcooked, Super Smash Bros., and other co-op games on Switch. So, I can still picture people sitting there, playing this together, trying to balance and carry the corpse through a level. On a computer, it’s harder to get people sitting together for local co-op.

Will there be any differences between the Switch 1 and 2 versions? And when do you anticipate the game releasing?

Luke: Aside from a graphics and resolution upgrade [on Switch 2], we will have to see if the Switch version is able to support the eight-player mode. It could be taxing on the hardware, as our maps for those are quite a lot bigger than the normal modes. The basic modes will all be there on Switch, though.

We’re looking to release the full 1.0 release [on PC] later this year, with the Switch port happening in the first half of next year.

To sign off, let’s ask the burning question: what’s your favourite Switch game?

Cindy: My favourite Switch games would have to be the two Legend of Zeldas! I think I spent more than 600 hours on each one. I really love the environment design and how the games utilise players' curiosity and guide them to specific locations on the map where events and quests happen. That feeling of discovery is very inspiring to me as a game designer.

Luke: It’s hard to pick a single favourite when my college years were defined by the chaos of Mario Kart and Smash in my tiny living room. But Animal Crossing will always hold a special place in my heart. It gave us a world to inhabit together during the pandemic, offering a space to hang out and find joy when the physical world felt so far away.

Thank you to Cindy and Luke for taking the time to speak with us.

They also wanted us to let Nintendo Life readers know that they also plan to bring their marquee game Inkression — which uses tattoo art to explore the stories of a dying gentrified neighbourhood — to the Switch. A demo for that game is available on Steam.