Nocturnals: Cacti Coast, Companions and Cannibals with Max and Pablo from Cowboy Toad Games
Aug 2, 2026 ·
42m 5s
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Description
Davey is flying solo at for a chat with two guests who are, frankly, serious gamer couple goals. Max and Pablo are Cowboy Toad Games, the boyfriend team behind 2024's...
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Davey is flying solo at for a chat with two guests who are, frankly, serious gamer couple goals. Max and Pablo are Cowboy Toad Games, the boyfriend team behind 2024's Nocturnals, the game that kicked off this podcast's love affair with LGBTQIA+ developed games. They're back with the sequel, Nocturnals: Cacti Coast, currently in development for a 2027 release. Max returns for his second appearance on the show, and Pablo joins for the first time. In this episode:
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- What it actually feels like to have your partner make a video game as a love letter to you, and why Pablo says the more valuable thing was the two of them landing their dream job
- The moment they realised Nocturnals was going to be a career and not just a passion project
- The new companion system: characters who travel with you, whose interests sometimes conflict, and who can be absent from your playthrough entirely
- Choosing where to go, including the slaughterhouse, and why location choice makes each player's story their own
- Keeping Ted grounded while adding stealth, because he's a scared young man and not James Bond
- Writing characters who are so closely based on yourselves that a fan wiki lists Ted and Diego as a real couple living in Cornwall
- Meeting Izzy, the bratty new companion voiced by Max's little sister, plus Randy and Maria
- The lessons from the first game's spaghetti code, and how better organisation now means a dialogue change takes three seconds instead of a re-render
- Playtesting revelations, including the friend who kept walking straight into the cannibals
- How Pablo's soundtrack is evolving: real instruments, proper software, and recurring character motifs this time around
- Why Cacti Coast is worth the wait to 2027, and what the extra time buys, including localisation, mobile done properly from the ground up, and Ted's journal system
- The relationship question: how do you run a business, ship a game and stay boyfriends? Areas of responsibility, honest expectations, and a hard stop at the end of the working day
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fqC2FeHSUr
Support the BQN Network on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bqn
Support BBG directly on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bargainbingaymers
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| Author | BQN |
| Organization | BQN |
| Website | bargainbingaymer.com |
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