Image: Austin VoigtAt PAX East, we had a chance to sit down with the lively Nico Papalia and Top Hat Studios - developer of Athenian Rhapsody, and its newly-announced prequel, Tales of Tuscany (releasing on “whatever you play games on,” including Switch, in 2026). We wanted to learn a bit more about what inspired such a mad-cap universe, and where the WarioWare / EarthBound / Pokémon-esque ideas all stemmed from. While it was a bit of a challenge to talk over the raucous laughter coming from the crowd gathered at the demo booth, we managed to get an inside glimpse at Papalia's surprising backstory and his work on both games.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube813kWatch on YouTube Here is our interview with Nico, which was just as entertaining and zany as the universe these games are based in... Nintendo Life: So, let's start from the top — what was the inspiration behind the universe of Tales of Tuscany and Athenian Rhapsody? There seem to be some Earthbound vibes in there... Nico Papalia: Honestly, I didn't even play Earthbound until AFTER I started Athenian Rhapsody - fun fact! I bit into it and was like, 'I feel like this meshes with me,' and I felt like it looked like what I was making. Definitely inspired by Pokémon on Game Boy Advance, played a lot of that. I also played a lot of Castle Crashers - The Behemoth are my friends, so I talked to them a lot, and we're actually discussing working on something together too — very slapstick-y, you know — but they're so tight about their IPs, so... we're still talking. I had big ideas - but I never knew programming, I went to school for art, I was doing traditional pencil art and stuff - I didn't know what I was doing. So it built over time, and I'm very fortunate and lucky that I was able to share this at the scale that I did, and turn it into my job. It's very personal. "Slapstick-y" is definitely the right word for these games, they're hilarious. Yeah, it doesn't take itself too seriously, so the inspiration for the world is just basically my life, my friends, and what I think is funny at the moment. I'll just throw funny things in there as I think of them - and the players seem to love it. I'm a solo dev, so I can kind of have the final say and just do whatever I want. It's fun. In the first game, I took some risks and had this 'invisible grilled cheese' in the map, like an item, and I thought nobody was going to find it - but someone found it within eight hours of launch! I crashed out on social, I bugged out. Will there be any secrets or easter eggs to find in Tales of Tuscany? There aren't too many secrets yet - I'm still developing it, and I just finished the main story, so now I have to do the 'evil' story, and I'll kind of just throw some extra stuff in there before it releases, probably around spring 2026. Tell us a little more about how the two games differ. You know, making Athenian Rhapsody was kind of slow. I started with GameMaker, and it just kind of snowballed. So I honestly didn't really know what I was doing, going into the first game. It was in 4:3 ratio, like Game Boy Advance - because I'm a big GBA guy. So at first I was like, "Yeah, this is awesome!" Then, you know, it comes to porting it and I'm like... "Oh no." So, Tales of Tuscany is in the RIGHT resolution. It's also got more control customisations, quality-of-life stuff like that. Round 2: bigger, better, stronger. I like to say, Athenian Rhapsody is like Pokémon Emerald, and Tales of Tuscany is more like Pokémon Black & White - based on the battles and stuff, with the camera movement, sprite work, stuff like that. So you're clearly a big Pokémon fan too! What are some of the different games you played growing up? I played a lot of Game Boy Advance games - Madagascar, Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Minish Cap, and things like that. My grandma would just go buy them for me. Or I played Crash Bandicoot on the PS2, and I would just stay in the starting area and mess with stuff - I never progressed in the game, and that was actually probably what I do with most of these games. I never progressed; I just did things. And I guess it all kind of just formed that inspiration for me. Image: Top Hat Studios Interesting - so are you a bit of a completionist then? Because this game — with all of the different choices and storylines — seems a bit overwhelming for a completionist, like you could never *actually* complete it entirely. You know what, when I was a teenager, I was more of a completionist; I would 100% complete Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze and stuff like that. But a lot of times, I was just kind of a stupid guy who didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't advance through the plots, I never got Rayquaza [in Pokémon Emerald] - so I would just go and do random things. And now, I'm actually kind of the opposite of that. So making Athenian Rhapsody and Tales of Tuscany, I want a kid to be able to just go around and have fun. The games seem to be designed almost like a constant dopamine hit. Players are allowed to just be mischievous and do whatever they want. And there's probably no way you could experience every single choice available to you in the games. That's exactly it! That's kind of what me and my friends like. You kind of have to get in there a few times, and the way it worked out, some players like that, and some don't. Some people are that objective, numeric, "I'm done, check the box" thing - but with these games, the experience is always going to be different, depending on who you have in your party and the choices you make. Another thing is that, it doesn't feel 'perfect', and a lot of people like that. Did you always intend for the game to be a 'choose-your-own-adventure' style like that? Yeah, I always intended for it to be like that, but I didn't exactly know how to do it at first. I couldn't figure it out. So, Athenian Rhapsody was not programmed very well... Tales of Tuscany is programmed much better, I was able to pull it off better. But I just had to start small and build off of it, because I had big ideas - but I never knew programming, I went to school for art, I was doing traditional pencil art and stuff, I didn't know what I was doing. So it built over time, and I'm very fortunate and lucky that I was able to share this at the scale that I did, and turn it into my job. It's very personal. Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube813k As someone who studied art and went to school for it, did that help with the development of the game itself - at least, the art aspect of it? That's actually a sick question - it must have! I went to SUNY Oneonta, awesome school, I had a lot of great teachers. I was all into anatomy — transformational anatomy — and it took me kind of a while to figure it out, using space and character design. So when I started Athenian Rhapsody, my pixel art was very poor - I didn't have these fully-saturated colours yet, I didn't figure that out yet. My sprites, I was doing the pillow shading... so it took me a while to get it. There's some kind of interlink, but that skill definitely wasn't immediate; I had to learn to access that part of my brain, learning the basics of pixel art. Even in Athenian Rhapsody, when you play it, you'll see there are 10 things going on in one room; that's because I didn't know what I was doing with the space! That honestly led to this feeling of extremely hyper pace, things around every corner... But it works! The absurdism is what makes it all so endearing. Part of it sounds like it was accidental, trial-and-error, but that actually became a really cool thing. Exactly! And I was just doing what I wanted to do. I got lucky that people liked it. Some people think it's a little too much, but I've also heard from a lot of players who really like it, saying they love the story. Another publication, the reviewer said he thought the story "changed vibes too much," and that's where he wrote me off for points. But I've got other people — especially younger kids, but a lot of adults, too — saying they love that about the story! And I personally think it's very needed. A lot of times in this industry, people can take themselves a little too seriously, and I appreciate that you're just doing what you wanna do. It seems like people are drawn to that. Yeah, I try and get very personal and show myself as I am. That's how I built this, doing tutorials online and building a following just being myself. I just took my phone and filmed my screen showing "Today I did this," and I was just being real. But I'm lucky, I still just get to do whatever I want. Like for Tales of Tuscany, the team thought it was a little bit of a risk, making the main character a sheep... Lambypoo - it reminds me of my dog's toy, Lambchop! Oh my god, YES! That's exactly it! I have a hundred of those laying around my house, ripped up! That's where it came from, I'm so glad you said that! So I was just like... yo, what if I had a button, where the lamb just started "baaa"-ing? And that's where the idea for the 'Baa' button came from. You know, it doesn't always have to be this "Hold X, charge your sword..." - you can just have fun with it. So the 'Baa' turned into an interaction tool - you can break plants and cars and stuff, because people just wanna do fun stuff, like the dopamine hits we talked about earlier. So I'm trying to hone in on that. Images: Top Hat Studios I'm still shocked you hadn't played the Earthbound / Mother games prior to starting your first game. It feels like such a spiritual successor to those games. Right? And when it comes to the flavour text in those games, like the options are: "Yeah", or "I'm lactose intolerant" - that's exactly how I write, too. It almost unlocked something, when I saw that. I was like, 'Okay, so this is okay what I'm doing, this irreverence.' I watched a documentary on Earthbound, and the director was saying he had a very intuitive approach - he didn't plan it all out, he just did it block-by-block, and that's exactly what I do, too. So I guess it's that same brain type, maybe? And I had friends from my school who were trying to tell me: "Yeah, you have to block the whole game out" and all of this stuff, and I was like: "Dude, but I'm changing it every day?". So there are a lot of differences between the two games and how much I planned out Tales of Tuscany, but they're the same spirit. Speaking of Earthbound, I've heard you refer to your games as "JRPGs" a few times - what does that label mean to you specifically? Honestly, I've been saying "JRPG" lately just because I think of a long-narrative-based game, and "RPG" is too broad. But I don't know... I also call it an "IRPG" sometimes — "Italian RPG" — because I'm Italian, and Italians do like long conversations. For someone who's never heard of either of your games, what's the one thing you would say to get them to take a look at this series? Out of all of the RPGs and JRPGs out there, there are a lot, and a good one that really makes it to the finish line is hard to find. This game has a lot of love in it, there's something to love in it for everybody, that's a big part of how I made the game. I loved Game Freak's early philosophy of trying to strike a balance between 'cute' and 'cool', and how everyone has a favourite pokémon. And with Athenian Rhapsody, I tried to make one follower that everyone could love. It's the game that conforms to what you like, and everyone will get something out of it. The 'rhapsodies' are like Gen 1 trading; I wanted everyone to get something out of it. In Pokémon, you can port your Pokémon across all of the consoles, and that's kind of what I was trying to do. We'll see how that works! So, the 'munchkins' are making a comeback, too, only this time, the weasels are watching you and ruining everything. This new feature seems pretty cruel, and I'm wondering what happened to you as a child that made you want to torture people? HA! So, in the first game, I had a debug option in the 'pause' menu — just a placeholder — and it was called 'munchkins', and all these stupid things. And I was like, eff it, I'm gonna make 'munchkins' a real thing. So basically, you have to wait, like, 8-10 hours to download them, and you have a 50% chance of failing... and if it works, it's just a picture of some art of mine that says like, "Congratulations" - but I didn't realize everyone was going crazy over that! So with Tales of Tuscany, I thought 'Okay, I won't have a random 50% chance of failing at the end... but there WILL be weasels... and the weasels come and slowly go across the screen, and when they tell you, you have to press an input, otherwise they'll corrupt the munchkin.' I thought, 'I can't just do the same thing again', so I changed it up a little bit. Nobody else is doing munchkins! Nobody else is doing something to the player where they're like, 'No, you do it the way I want you to do it, or else you fail, and I'm not making it easier because you're complaining.' @athenianrhapsody Revolutionary new gameplay mechanic. Wishlist Tales of Tuscany on Steam #pixelart #indiegames #undertale #deltarune #earthbound #nintendo #athenianrhapsody #pokemon #indiegame #gaming #jrpg #omori #yumenikki #fearandhunger #lisathepainful #chainedechoes #talesoftuscany #warioware ♬ original sound - Athenian Rhapsody You're just going to make the game you want to make, and purposely live outside of the box. Was there anything too crazy in Tales of Tuscany that ended up getting vetoed yet? Yeah, there are a few things my publishers tell me I have to edit... I know more how to skirt the line now, but there were a few parts that might have to change. There's this character from Athenian Rhapsody called Uncle Billiard, and he's in this one again because he's a great character - and he has this hot dog place, but they all call the hot dogs 'wieners'... and there's this one character who's like, "Oh yeah, my double wiener sandwich..." and looking back on it, I'm like, "I can't just be throwing 'wiener' around like that." Or like, I wanted to have an enemy with a plumber's crack, and a mechanic where you have to throw things in it. And I actually vetoed that for Athenian Rhapsody, because it was kind of disgusting. ...Ask forgiveness, not permission? Yep, that's my motto! Image: Top Hat Studios Do you have plans to add any more to this universe, or do you think you'll go in a totally different direction? Honestly, I think this IP was a good one, it's strong. I did specifically want to do three RPGs. Why three, because of Earthbound? Oh, I didn't even think about that! I just thought it would be a nice number. You should do three, and just never release the final one here. HA, yeah, I'll just say there's a third! You know, I did originally want to do three, but making this game, I'm nearing the end of the creative development, and I kind of want to take a break from RPGs for a bit. We're doing the mobile game, too - it's called Goobie Garden, and Thunder Goober is in it, he obviously hit something, so even if I do decide to take a break with the IP, I'll always come back to it. But I think for my next console game, I'd like to do something a little more simple, mechanic-based... maybe a battler? I'd like to do a roguelike game. Not sure yet though! This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Thank you, Nico Papalia (@AthenianRhapso1 on X) and the team at Top Hat Studios, for taking the time to answer our questions. Tales of Tuscany will be coming to PC and consoles in 2026. Will you be playing Tales of Tuscany when it releases? Did you play Athenian Rhapsody? Let us know in the comments below. Plenty of new Switch (2) offerings See Also Share:0 2 Austin started gaming at 2 years old and has been addicted ever since. Her Zelda, Mario, Pokémon & Animal Crossing obsessions freak people out. She habitually carries a mini projector around to play her Switch in console mode in weird places. Her favorite gaming snack is pizza rolls, because greasy controllers are her bugaboo. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Nintendo Unveils Diddy Kong's Brand New Design Cap's off The First Review For Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Is In A fantasy score? 12 Switch Games Are Getting Free Switch 2 Upgrades, Here's What You Can Expect Nintendo's free updates arrive next month Review: Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (Switch) - A Cracking Collection Of Top-Class Arcade Fighters A Dream(cast) collection