THE EVOLUTION OF BATTLETOADS

KEVIN BAYLISS

Battletoads creator Kevin Bayliss is making a musical comic tribute called Salamandos with musician David Wise.

PAUL MACHACEK

Paul Machacek worked on several Battletoads projects, and provided QA for the reboot released in 2020.

AJ GRAND-SCRUTTON

Dlala Studios founder AJ Grand - Scrutton directed the recent Battletoads reboot, and has ideas for a sequel.

Unlike today, there was no such thing as instant information in the early Nineties, and so Rare founder Tim Stamper first became aware of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles well after they had become a US craze. Given his firm’s focus on NES development for the American market, and its desire to create its own IP, it follows that Tim’s response was to brainstorm a NES title around a team to rival the popular turtles, as Rare’s Paul Machacek recalls. “Tim had just been to the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in the US, where he had witnessed first-hand how big the TMNT franchise was,” Paul notes. “I recall a conversation with Tim, Mark Betteridge, Kevin Bayliss and myself, where there was an understanding that a frog or toad-based game with fighting would be the initial direction. Tim’s close working relationship with Mark was going to continue into this game, and Kev was then responsible for the look of the characters.”

Reflecting on his inspirations for these amphibian brawlers, Kevin Bayliss cites both his childhood and teenage passions, the combination of which nicely fitted the brief. “When I was a