When Stevie met Brian: Retro City Rampage, Sega and more…

First of all, for those who don’t know, Retro City Rampage is an upcoming retro styled game celebrating all that was the late 80’s and early 90’s. The game is a parody of the open world genre as well as many other games. Of course there’s more to it than that but why hear it from me when you can read about what Brian Provinciano (the developer and head of Vblank entertainment) has to say?

Well read on dear reader as I recall my interview with the creator of this upcoming indie gem. Marvel as we discuss everything from comedy in games to Sega, to the goosebumps books by R.L. Stine. So hit the jump to read about the exciting antics and adventures that happened when Stevie met Brian!

As soon as I got connected with him through Skype we began to discuss the Mega Drive and it’s popularity in Europe. For example the NES was huge in America and Canada while the UK was always been a Sega dominated country. We both expressed how weird it was that different regions have different preferences, especially in retro games. This lead me onto the actual conversation where I asked him to explain Retro City Rampage for anyone who hadn’t heard of it.

Imagine Grand Theft Auto 3 on the NES.

Retro City Rampage started life as a ‘de-make’ of Grant Theft Auto 3. He went on to explain that the pop culture of the 80’s and 90’s would influence the game and be a big part of the evolution from a simple de-make to a full game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6sMr-qKmD4
Brian then told me about the process of making Retro City Rampage. The game had originally started as a game called Grand Theftendo, a game which would be actually on an NES cartridge. He had been working on it for a long time when he decided to add original missions with it. Over time it had evolved into a whole other game, with references and mechanics of it’s own. This is when it became Retro City Rampage. The game itself has been in development for over 6 years. Considering it’s just been him doing the gameplay design and programming, that’s a big accomplishment.

Of course no piece of media is without it’s inspirations and the big inspirations for Retro City Rampage were of cruse the original Grand Theft Auto games and nearly every NES game ever made. The last Grand Theft Auto game that really grabbed him was Vice City. This was because it was the last game to be on the more comical side.

I feel that the Houser brothers really want to make Guy Richie movies now.

I agreed with this statement too as the GTA games do seem to be going through an awkward shift in tone.

With Retro City Rampage being the next in a long line of retro styled games I asked him about the new modern retro styled games. He jokingly replied that he was scorned by Megaman 9. Being a retro styled game before he could release his. He however then stated that it was a good thing in the end as people are now more interested in retro games than ever.

In the end however, I think it was actually a good thing.

This is when I got onto the topic of Sega. Being on a site called Sega Addicts I had to ask if there were any Sega inspirations. Brain was in fact heavily influenced by Sonic the Hedgehog. He told me about a gameplay mechanic where you can jump around on Sonic styled springs. This started off as an aesthetic choice at first but the springs actually come into play later in the game, in one of the many chaotic rampage missions. There are also said to be a ton more Sega references, but because the game is already packed with references it’s hard to remember them all. The game sounds like it has re playability just by that fact, as you may often miss jokes the first time round.

After I asked him about the perils of getting your game known, especially when being an independent developer.

Unfortunately when the game was announced people began criticising if for being a WiiWare game. It’s unfortunate but WiiWare games in general have a bad stigma attached to them.

The fact that this is the case saddens me. The WiiWare service in fact has a ton of great games, but thanks to games like My Aquarium 8000 the good games get lost amongst the mess. This is when I asked him about any other console releases. Unfortunately he couldn’t say anything yet but he confirmed that it will come out one one other console. Just be on the lookout for any more information regarding this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O87mfglVTuo
As you can tell by the trailers I’m posting Retro City Rampage is set to have amazing music. I asked him to find out more abut the music in the.

The music in Retro City Rampage is composed by a trio of chip tune musicians. Including Leonard Paul who has even made music for the Sega Genesis and Jake Kaufman A.K.A. “Virt” who has made music for games such as Contra 4.

Also since the game is so diverse he told me that the chiptunes will be in a verity of styles including heavy metal. That’s right folks, heavy metal chiptunes! The music is so good in fact he revealed an upcoming contest where he will reveal the Retro City Rampage theme and let people remix it. The winner will win something cool. So stay tuned for that awesome sounding competition. I have since heard some of the music from the game and I can say it is very good. It will also have it’s very own soundtrack soon after the game is released.

But here’s the bit we were all waiting for. I am of course known for asking the hard hitting questions, so I grilled Brian about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Goosebumps.

I think Donatello was the best in the NES game so I’d have to go with him.

Soon after we talked about the horrendous water level in that game which he does in fact parody in Retro City Rampage. But it also seems his plan doesn’t stop there. He plans to make that level better and replace all those terrible memory’s with one’s of joy. A bit like Inception, I added.

And finally:

My favourite Goosebumps were always the TV shows that were on at Halloween. They used to do a marathon of 4 episodes and have a contest. However since I live in Canada we got it late and the contest wouldn’t be open to us but the time I got to see it.

While I was asking senseless questions he also revealed that the game wouldn’t contain animals, but would have a reference to the classic game Bad Dudes.

And that was the tale of when I talked to Brian Provinciano from Vblank entertainment. The game sounds very exciting and I’m sure we can expect the game in our hands soon. The game is a tribute to everything retro including Sega, Nintendo and any game from the early 90’s. However there was one question left to ask. What’s next?

I would love to do sequels and spin offs.

So now all we have to do is buy the game when it comes out, and we could even see more Retro City Rampage in the future. And from the looks of it, the game looks amazing already. In the meantime look out for Retro City Rampage, downloading to your consoles soon.