Developer Acceleration Program Spotlight: StudioBando

In 2023, the ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program was officially announced, with the mission to empower underrepresented creators with the resources and information needed to bring their creativity, innovation, and originality to Xbox. By removing longstanding barriers to entry for creators and normalizing diverse storylines and characters in gaming, both players and developers win.

The types of developers that the Developer Acceleration Program seeks to support includes is (but not limited to) developers who are led by those from Black, Indigenous, Latino or LGBTQIA+ communities, women, developers with disabilities, developers from emerging markets or teams with unique perspectives. This includes independent developers working on a game that responsibly centers the experience around diverse characters or that prioritizes accessibility.

Since the program was announced, dozens of games have been released on Xbox to both critical acclaim and commercial success. With that in mind, we believe it is only fitting that we spotlight some of the creators behind these titles in a new recurring series on Microsoft Game Dev blog.

This week, we’re highlighting StudioBando, developer of the Developer Acceleration Program title SOPA - Tale of the Stolen Potato. We had the chance to chat with StudioBando CEO Juan Castaneda about his studio’s experience with the program and how DAP helped them successfully develop SOPA - Tale of the Stolen Potato.

Tell us about StudioBando.

At StudioBando, we’re all about crafting original, meaningful stories that connect with players everywhere. Our team is mainly based in Latin America, with folks in Colombia and Mexico, and we also work with some amazing talent from the US, Argentina, and China.

We got our start back in 2018, when the creative team behind Snapimals (an Apple Editor's Pick) decided to strike out on our own and build a studio where we could focus on making the kinds of games we were really passionate about. With our deep roots in animation, we’ve brought that love for storytelling and world-building into everything we do.

With our scrappy core team, we first developed Super Best Ghost Game!, which gained recognition as one of Apple's New Games We Love selections. We were thrilled to license it to Mightier, a company that uses games to help kids understand and regulate their emotions—something we’re really proud to contribute to.

We’ve since had the privilege of seeing our work featured in The Guardian, IGN, and Digital Trends, and we’re always excited to keep exploring new ideas with every game we create, creating engaging stories and unique games that leave a lasting impression.

What can you tell us about SOPA - Tale of the Stolen Potato?

SOPA is a beautiful narrative adventure about the things we pass along. It's about family, tradition, and appreciating where we come from. In SOPA, we follow Miho, who's visiting his Nana's house somewhere in a small town in the depths of Latin America.

He's a bit bored lounging around the house and watching the Voltage Templars (an homage to the Power Rangers) on TV. When the power cuts out, Miho wanders into the kitchen, where Nana enlists his help in fetching the ingredients for her classic soup.

But when Miho steps into the pantry to grab a potato, he's pulled into a world of Magical Realism and fantasy, embarking on a journey across a land of endless deserts, floating mountains, and talking beasts, solving puzzles and outsmarting thieves, while meeting all sorts of quirky characters along the way... all to fetch a potato for Nana's soup.

But each time Miho returns to the kitchen with an ingredient, things have changed in unexpected ways...

*As a fun fact: "Miho" comes from "Mi Hijo", or "my son" in Spanish. It's what every Nana calls every grandson where we come from.

Any hints on what might be coming next from Studio Bando?

Things are a bit top-secret around the studio right now, but we're cooking up some new adventures in the SOPA universe.

What accomplishments are you most proud of as an independent studio?

It's still surreal for us that SOPA will be coming to Game Pass later this year. When we first started the studio, it seemed like an unattainable goal, but we've persevered despite all sorts of difficult situations to get to this point.

Another personal favorite was watching some coverage from IGN Japan in which SOPA was described as like "playing a Pixar movie". After cranking away in the dark for so long, seeing folks react so positively to the game and connect so sincerely with what we're creating has been incredibly rewarding.

Finally, having folks from around the world come up to us during events and personally thank us for having created something that depicts our culture in such an honest way, hearing them exclaim how much the game reminds them of their grandma's house or their family back home, has been really emotional.

What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced as an independent studio?

Whoof! We've faced all kinds of challenges from the start. When we first began, we didn't have the clout, fame, or fortune to secure funding deals from the start. We moved back in with our parents as we were first founding the studio, and really scraped by as we could in order to create our first project. Our families' support was invaluable and in many ways an inspiration in later telling the story of SOPA.

Initially, saying that we were from Latin America, and particularly Colombia, would lead to would-be investors and publishers raising concerns about our region being too risky, scoffing at the amount of money we were trying to raise, or flat-out making jokes about our countries.

SOPA is also an ambitious, unique project that we’ve always had a very clear vision for. We could explain every detail in the game as clearly as possible, but because of the nature of the game, because of how cinematic and quirky it is, it meant that we had to go ahead and just build a huge chunk of polished game ourselves before folks could understand what it was that we were making.

It was the wonderful folks at id@xbox that first really understood what we were creating and believed that we could pull it off. They welcomed us into the Developer Acceleration Program and that's when we were able to concentrate our efforts and move into full production of the game.

We then continued cranking away on the project and finally negotiated and signed our first publishing deal for the game. But several months later, the publisher restructured, letting go of the folks who had believed in our project and wanting to cancel our game entirely. We were fortunate to be able to recover our rights to the game, but it was definitely one of the most challenging experiences of our careers, and very personally trying.

We continued with our development of the game despite anything that came our way, finally receiving a terrific offer from an established publisher! After months of negotiation, we were pretty much ready to sign when we suddenly witnessed the start of the industry-wide downturn. We watched in horror as our contract was pulled from the table amidst studio closures and layoffs left and right.

Back to square 0. As founders, we cut out our own wages to keep supporting the rest of the team and kept pushing through. Around that time, the ID@Xbox team reached out to let us know that the Game Pass team had been able to try our latest demo and were interested in bringing SOPA onboard.

We had already had a wonderful experience working with them as part of the DAP, and we knew that they understood and cared for what we were making with SOPA. We jumped at the opportunity!

How did you learn about or connect with the Developer Acceleration Program?

In one of the hundreds of pitches we made for the game, we came across a couple of super lovely publisher scouts. They explained that the publisher wasn't the right fit for SOPA, but that they had seen some of our materials and they were personally interested in hearing about the game regardless. We walked them through the game and showed off the demo we had at the time. They were up to speed with the DAP and the types of projects the team was looking for and were kind enough to connect us with the team directly, with no interest of their own other than wanting to see the project get made. We're eternally grateful to them!

How has the Developer Acceleration Program impacted your game’s development?

The DAP allowed SOPA to come into existence. Earlier on the day that we were notified that we'd be part of the program, I had been speaking with our advisor, asking if it even made sense to persevere in getting this project made, or whether we should just give up. The DAP completely changed the outlook for our studio and allowed us to create this beautiful project that we're so proud of. We simply wouldn't have been able to do it without being part of the Developer Acceleration Program.

Why do you feel that programs like DAP are important to the health of the game industry?

The DAP is allowing the most creative and envelope-pushing games to not only to exist, but also to find an audience on one of the core gaming platforms on the planet. By doing so, it's allowing independent game studios to flourish around the world, building up the industry around them, and creating even more opportunities for our medium and the talented folks that carry it forward.

I think that the DAP is transforming the gaming landscape and laying the groundwork for what could be some of the most exciting projects and studios over the next five to 10 years and beyond.

I wouldn't be surprised to see other platforms try to reproduce the DAP as they start to get a sense of how excited we developers are, the amazing catalog of games that's coming together, and the slew of unbelievable studios that are growing alongside it.