Indie Spotlight – Crashlands 2: Butterscotch Shenanigans Returns with a Bigger, Bolder Adventure

Butterscotch Shenanigans is set to launch the indie game, Crashlands 2 on Android, iOS, and PC on April 10, 2025. This action–adventure RPG invites you to explore a dynamic alien open world with enhanced graphics, lively characters, adorable pets, and more content. Building on the success of its predecessor, this sequel promises a thrilling RPG experience with crafting elements.

Game Overview

Crashlands 2 is an open-world crafting action–adventure RPG, and the highly anticipated sequel to the beloved story-driven crafting RPG, Crashlands, which was released in January 2016. This time, you will once again play as Flux Dabes, and return to the world of Woanope.

With enhanced graphics, an incredible storyline, and an adorable cast of characters and pets, Crashlands 2 is perfect for both long-time fans and newcomers who want an enjoyable experience with exciting gameplay. In this game, you can explore Woanope, featuring a dynamic ecosystem, curious creatures, and more.

Beyond exploration, you can also fish, build a cozy home, or farm, become friends with various characters, discover new crafting recipes, and raise adorable pet companions into formidable beasts. From crafting gadgets, elixirs, and weapons to customizing your play style, battling enemies, or working together with locals to uncover various mysteries, Crashlands 2 delivers an engaging and expansive experience to modern gamers.

Why you should play Crashlands 2

• Sequel to the popular award-winning Crashlands, offering even more exciting content and improved gameplay.
• Let’s you explore an alien world and perform various activities such as crafting, fishing, building houses, farming, and more.
• Stunning visuals with enhanced graphics and a great cast of characters.
• Perfect for players who want to try an open-world RPG experience with action-adventure elements.

From concept to creation: Developer Insights

In a conversation with GamingonPhone, Adam Coster, one of the three founders of Butterscotch Shenanigans shared important details about Crashlands 2 during our discussion. He provided insights into the game’s inspiration, developmental challenges, failed partnership with Netflix, and more.

While discussing the studio and the founders’ backgrounds, Mr. Coster shared that he is the oldest of the three brothers, and they founded the studio together. He revealed that his middle brother had always dreamed of making games since childhood, adding, “really couldn’t quite figure out how to make that work and so he instead went to law school,” hoping to enter the gaming world from the legal side rather than a developer.

However, after discovering Game Maker and dedicating himself to it, his brother ultimately dropped out to pursue game development. Their youngest brother, Sam also joined in. Mr. Coster noted, “I was in grad school at the time and working on a PhD in cell biology,” and after receiving his PhD, he decided to join his brothers full-time to create games.

By the time he joined in 2014, his brother had already released a few mobile games, adding, “We had Flop Rocket and Quadropus Rampage and a couple of other ones and they had lots of downloads.” However, those titles didn’t perform well financially.

He mentioned that he joined about six months into the development of the original Crashlands, further revealing, ”We were trying to break into the PC space to make games the way that we really wanted to and not try to deal with the complex monetization stuff on mobile.”

The inspiration behind Crashlands 2

He shared that due to the demand for Crashlands 2, the team began development after completing their previous projects. Initially, they started with a small team of six, which has expanded to nine members now.

With such a big project to work on, he explained, “the idea was we needed a game that is clearly Crashlands 2 so that Crashlands original players get what they want but has to be completely different from Crashlands.”

Additionally, he emphasized that this sequel needed to stand on its own, ensuring that players could enjoy it without the need to play or be familiar with the original game. “So now here we are four and a half years into working on Crashlands 2 and finally almost done so we can get it out here,” he added.

Major challenges the studios faced while developing the game

When asked about the developmental challenges, especially considering the recent drama with Netflix, he explained, “It was mostly about scale.” He elaborated on the gameplay mechanics of the original title, noting that “the core of what you’re doing in the game, after the first I don’t know six hours or so just kind of doesn’t really change very much.”

He shared, “A lot of what we wanted to do with Crashlands 2 was make everything more meaningful the whole time.” In the original, much of the stuff felt disposable, with him providing an example, “You make that cool armor set and then an hour later, there’s a new armor set so you throw this one away.”

This time they wanted items to feel unique not just because they are stronger, but due to fundamental differences from each other, “rather than having the simple thing to do in game design, which is like a power curve, just the numbers get bigger, kind of a thing.”

They also decided to move away from the procedural world of the original game. He explained, “There’s a sameness to it that kind of just gets a little stale, and we wanted to handcraft the whole shebang.” In addition to this, he revealed that the team wanted things to be flattened, allowing players to move sideways rather than just leveling up.

They aimed for “a story that we wanted to be much deeper and richer than the original.” However, integrating all these elements made development far more complicated. He revealed to ensure the narrative is worth it as per their vision, “we hired somebody to do our writing this time around,” to have a much broader deeper story.

He summed it up by saying, “So short story is just the sheer scale and complexity of this marriage of genres of open world crafting, story-driven, and everything being hand-built rather than procedural,” became the biggest challenge in development.

How Crashlands 2 builds on and evolves upon the original game

“Fans want two things simultaneously with the sequel is they want it to be exactly the same and completely different,” he stated. To achieve this, the studio ensured the return of two beloved characters, adding “Flux, and her little robot companion Juicebox are the main characters in this one as well.”

He also explained that they “needed it to be called Crashlands because otherwise you can’t tell its part of the franchise” which is also why it once again begins with a crash landing. This familiar opening gives you the feeling of starting the original game again.

“When you first start basically it’s experienced as if you are just playing Crashlands again except everything looks way better,” he revealed. However, as the game progresses, you will get to experience its richer and deeper content.

The studio aimed to create a nostalgic feeling for returning players before transforming the experience into something new. While keeping the core gameplay, the studio refined and enhanced every element design. “We pulled most of the design elements back through, but we just workshopped them all over again to try to just get a better version of everything,” he concluded.

The game engine used for the original Crashlands and this sequel

After Mr. Coster mentioned Game Maker earlier, I was curious to confirm whether it was the same engine used for Crashlands and what they are using for this sequel, so I asked him about it.

He responded, “We’re still using Game Maker,” and elaborated further, “So, we’ve been a GameMaker Studio this whole time, and there’s a lot of reasons for that.” The main reason, he explained, is that it’s where they started, and after investing so much into it, switching to another engine seems difficult, something I can completely understand.

He emphasized that “it’s a solid 2D engine and for us being able to do things fast and focus on 2D is extremely beneficial.” Additionally, cross-platform is important for them, and he noted, “GameMaker’s been able to support us this whole time through that and it’s gotten a lot better than it used to be.”

Mr. Coster also expressed appreciation for a huge GameMaker update that introduced various features they needed, stating, “If we didn’t have those, I don’t think we could have made Crashlands 2 in it.” Look ahead towards the future, he added, “We’re still using it, but we’ll probably use it for the next one, too.”

The development time for Crashlands 2

Mr. Coster shared that by the time development is complete, “it’s going to be a net total of basically four and a half years.” He further explained that about a year of that time was dedicated to developing tools, while another year was spent figuring out exactly what the game would be and building its core system. He added, “Something like a year is the actual content push of really just actually having most of the questions answered and building all the stuff.”

The studio’s philosophical approach to creating new games

Coming to the studio’s approach to game development, Mr. Coster explained that their philosophy is centered on joy, allowing you to have fun and forget about your daily worries when playing their games.

He revealed that Crashlands 2 provides more emotional depth than their previous titles while emphasizing that the focus is still on having fun, making sure that you don’t leave with negative feelings. “It’s just all about joy and having a good time,” he added, highlighting it as their primary goal.

From a design perspective, he revealed that “it’s also about availability and ownership.” The studio strongly believes that player progression is personal, which is why they implemented a cross-platform system. “People can save progress from Steam to mobile to console or whatever, and it’s theirs the whole time,” he explained.

They are committed to cross-platform, “making games that can live on all these kinds of platforms,” playable with touch interface, controller, MnK, while running on machines of various sorts. He concluded by stating that joy and accessibility are the two core pillars of their games, while also maintaining a degree of silliness through foolish jokes and puns.

Future expansion or a potential third title in the franchise

Mr. Coster believes that franchises are an interesting trap, noting, “On the one hand, if you got a successful game, all anybody wants is the next one but also expectations for the next one are so high.” Given the significant differences between both games, he admitted, “Doing that again, to that degree of difference, I can’t even imagine I don’t know what that would look like.”

While he currently doesn’t see a proper way of making Crashlands 3 feel both familiar and entirely new, he acknowledged that “realistically, we’re going to both have to and want to make a Crashlands 3 at some point.”

However, the studio doesn’t want it to be their next project, stating, “Crashlands 2 is so hard to make, it has taken so long,” and they prefer to create something more relaxed and easier for a game or two.
He concluded by saying, “But yeah, the short answer is, yeah, there’s going to be a Crashlands 3 at some point, probably not next, though.”

What’s next for the studio and its upcoming projects

In the previous segment, he had partly answered this, but I still asked him to tease any upcoming projects. He responded, “We’re all so busy just finishing up Crash Lands 2 that we’re, trying not to think about what’s next as part of it,” while also noting the unpredictability of the industry.

He explained that their next game will largely depend on how Crashlands 2 performs at launch. A difference between a highly successful release and one not performing well will influence their next action.

Additionally, he said that each team member has an idea of what to work on next. He wants Quadropus Rampage 2, saying, “I love that game. It’s tightly scoped, so It doesn’t have to be huge.” Mr. Coster further elaborated that if the launch goes well, “there’s now new business opportunities that come up and port the game to new platforms and all this other kind of stuff,” which takes a lot of time.

The Netflix partnership fallout and self-publishing challenges

Although he couldn’t delve into the details, which is completely understandable, he provided a broad perspective, stating, “Nothing went wrong exactly, which is the nice thing.” He revealed that they began working with Netflix in 2023, around the same time they were “waiting to sort of officially announce the game until we knew what our launch platforms would be and who our launch partners are going to be.”

The partnership was established with the game set as a Netflix title for mobile. He shared that, “it was a really good partnership, they were great to work with, they weren’t overbearing in any way.” However, things went downhill around October 2024.

Mr. Coster admitted that he wasn’t fully aware of Netflix’s internal changes, with their recent strategic shift in gaming service, as everyone got to know with them removing six more titles. “So, as part of that, they were looking at the games in their portfolio to decide does this fit with our new strategy,” he explained.

He further elaborated that with Netflix’s strategic shift, it seems that Crashlands 2 just wasn’t something that they thought fit in their portfolio. Despite the split, he reassured that Netflix didn’t leave them just like that, adding, “They left us off in a decent state and they were very supportive on the way to get here, “crediting them for helping the studio in the earlier days.

Final Verdict from the Editor

Priced at $9.99, and scheduled to launch on April 10, 2025, Crashlands 2 appears to be a fun and engaging action-adventure RPG, offering better content, gameplay, visuals, and more, compared to its predecessor. To me, this sequel looks quite fun and holds great potential in terms of gameplay and storyline.

With its charming characters and pets, stunning environment designs, the ability to craft various items and gadgets, and enjoy activities like farming, fishing, and more, while also taking on enemies using stealth, traps, bombs, and other tactics. This is a must-play title for anyone who wants to try something new and exciting or experience the Crashlands series.

If you want to play this sequel, then you can pre-register for the game via your respective Google Play Store or App Store, and download it on April 10, 2025.

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