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Retro City Rampage DX hits digital platforms next week
An upgraded version of VBlank Entertainment's 8-bit styled sandbox action game Retro City Rampage debuts for the PlayStation 4, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox 360, WiiWare, PC, and Mac platforms next week, developer Brian Provinciano announced. Retro City Rampage DX boasts a number of improvements over the original 2012 game, including a new HUD, an overhauled weapon-selection system, zoom options, tighter controls, and new graphics modes. The PlayStation Store release supports Cross-Save functionality across all three platforms, and includes a new trophy set as an upgrade incentive. "For DX, every single mission's been re-tuned," developer Provinciano adds. "Vehicles. Weapons. Challenges. Visual Effects. Visual Enhancements. Checkpoints. Difficulty. Challenges. From the game's core to sprinkles on top, such as parking garages and waypoints, it's more than just a new coat of paint." While Retro City Rampage will be delisted from digital services following next week's launch, the original version of the game will be included as a bonus extra in DX. Retro City Rampage DX will debut first on PlayStation consoles on November 11 for $9.99, and all other platforms will follow in the days afterward. [Image: VBlank Entertainment]
Celebrate freedom from DRM with Humble Bundle July 4 sale
The Humble Store is currently hosting a particularly patriotic event, dubbed the DRM Freedom Sale, to celebrate the Fourth of July. The sale features games like Broforce, Surgeon Simulator 2013 and Retro City Rampage, discounted by up to 85 percent. Not only can you feel free to use the money you'll save on some sweet explosion-rockets, but you can feel good about yourself too, as 10 percent of the proceeds go to charity. You might want to hurry though; like a red, white and blue firework in the night sky - this deal will only exist for a short while. At the time of writing, there are just more than three hours left. [Image: Humble Store]
Mark of the Ninja, Dyad star in Canada Day sale on Steam
Steam's current sale honors the Great White North with a slate of discounted games made by our Canadian brothers and sisters in celebration of Canada Day. Featured Canada-powered games include TowerFall Ascension ($10.04), Fez ($4.99), Dyad ($3.75), Rogue Legacy ($7.49), Retro City Rampage ($2.50), and Mark of the Ninja ($4.99). Other sale highlights include Bleed, Starseed Pilgrim, and The Yawhg, among others. The sale ends tomorrow, so you'd best act swiftly if you want a dose of old-fashioned Canadian ingenuity. [Image: Steam]
New Nintendo eShop releases: Bravely Default, Retro City Rampage DX
New games! Yes, it would be nice to have a few more exciting eShop-only types, but at least we can start sending that tumbleweed on its way. Bravely Default headlines the also-at-retail games, and we'd recommend checking it out. In our four star review, we lauded the 3DS JRPG for mixing Final Fantasy sensibilities with modern design. Whether a new promo trailer really conveys that ... well, it doesn't, but it made us chuckle so we're throwing it in here. On the downloadable-only front, felonious indie Retro City Rampage comes to 3DS with lots of major tweaks, and it's another we had plenty nice to say about. Also, bike-former/plat-biker Urban Trial Freestyle is down to $3.50, starting later today and ending February 20. Oh, and don't forget the Super Indie Connection sale runs until February 13.
Retro City Rampage DX crashes onto 3DS this week
Retro City Rampage DX, the 3DS port of Brian Provinciano's indie crime sandbox game, is coming to the North American eShop on February 6; it'll be on Europe's eShop on February 20. Retro City Rampage DX will be priced at $10. Retro City Rampage DX includes some major tweaks to missions, weapons, vehicles, challenges, tutorials, checkpoints – just about every other aspect of the game has been modified toward providing a better overall experience. Retro City Rampage DX also features a slightly zoomed-in viewpoint on the 3DS, along with the most updated version of the game found on PC. Retro City Rampage has sold more than 250,000 copies across all platforms, Provinciano revealed in the 3DS release announcement. When including its time as a free PlayStation Plus game, Retro City Rampage has been downloaded more than 500,000 times. In our review, we said Retro City Rampage is "worth playing for its simple, accessible gameplay and charming, lovingly crafted world." [Image: Vblank Entertainment]
Retro City Rampage blows by 3DS in February, Steam sale today
Retro City Rampage will begin its old-school, urban crime spree on 3DS in February, developer VBlank Entertainment tweeted today. "No specific date yet," VBlank said, but it did share the price and file size: $10 and 16MB. To hype up the February 3DS announcement, the Steam version of Retro City Rampage has been updated and is today's Daily Deal, 80 percent off ($3). The update enhances some of the visuals and weapon actions, allows jumping in the middle of actions, throws in some new key bindings and more. "Another big update," VBlank wrote in the patch description. "Lots of changes/tweaks. The upcoming 3DS version's received a lot of updates, so the PC version gets them too! More to come still!"
Retro City Rampage jumps to 3DS, mayhem intact
Having appeared on nearly every other platform in existence, Retro City Rampage is now headed to the Nintendo 3DS. As the above teaser demonstrates, the game looks identical to its predecessors albeit with a slightly zoomed-in viewpoint for the player. Otherwise, Retro City Rampage seems to be as its always been: A strangely amusing 8-bit take on the open-world subgenre spawned by Grand Theft Auto perpetually colliding with the fragments of pop culture embedded permanently in the brains of those old enough to recall Jem And The Holograms. Or, as David described it in our review, Retro City Rampage is "the perfect game for gamers, an experience carefully executed to appeal directly to them." There is currently no word on when Retro City Rampage might make its 3DS debut.
Steam weekly sales: Thirty Flights of Loving, Elemental, more
Another week, another round of hefty Steam discounts: 18 games and applications are on sale this week with prices ranging from 50 to 75 percent off. Most notable are the indie darlings. Both Elemental and Retro City Rampage can now be purchased for $5 a piece, while Thirty Flights of Loving is a mere $2. If you're in more of a retro, strategic mood, have a look at either Jagged Alliance 2 Gold or Disciples II: Gallean's Return, games that are now priced at $5 and $1.62 respectively. For more information and a full list of all software on sale this week, have a look at Steam's weekly sales page.
Retro City Rampage 3DS won't support stereoscopic 3D
The 3DS port of Retro City Rampage will not include 3D visuals, developer Vblank Entertainment has announced. It's the game's top-down perspective that makes the feat such a significant technical burden. "With sidescrollers, developers can simply separate the background and foreground layers and distance them apart," the Vblank post reads. "However, with a top down perspective using cube-like objects such as buildings and vehicles, it would require the graphics to all be recreated as 3D objects, a new rendering engine, a camera system that players would be happy with, and further optimizations. For a new game it would be more feasible, but for an existing one, it simply would've taken too long." Retro City Rampage for 3DS, which includes the most recent version of the game with enhanced graphics, was announced yesterday. The 3DS port will be playable at Nintendo's PAX Prime booth next weekend.
Retro City Rampage coming to 3DS, playable at PAX Prime
Retro City Rampage is coming to the 3DS eShop, Nintendo has announced. The news was buried in a Nintendo press release, which we've embedded past the break, revealing playable games at next week's PAX Prime show in Seattle. Creator Brian Provinciano confirmed with Joystiq that this will be the latest version of Retro City Rampage, including the recently added Retro+ graphics mode that doubles on-screen colors and adds dynamic soft shadows to the game. He also said Retro City Rampage will be out on the 3DS eShop this holiday season. Retro City Rampage, a game we thoroughly enjoyed when it launched last year, is a humorous open-world crime game that started as a project to port Grand Theft Auto 3 over to the NES. Provinciano did the majority of the work himself – which was the subject of a rousing talk at this year's GDC show.
Retro City Rampage 'Retro+' graphics crash onto PS3, PS Vita
Those purty Retro+ graphics added last month to the PC version of Retro City Rampage have made their way to Theftropolis on the PS3 and PS Vita. The latest version is available on PSN now, bringing the PS3 and PS Vita versions of Retro City Rampage up to par with the PC version. Retro+ ups the overall visual fidelity of Retro City Rampage by doubling on-screen color count and turning on dynamic soft shadows. Purists can take it the other way with "Rom City Rampage," a true 8-bit version of Retro City Rampage scaled down to mirror how the game would run on NES hardware. The final piece of this update increases the length of Retro City Rampage's trial version for all. Coincidentally, Retro City Rampage is on sale for $5 right now across PC, PS Vita and PS3. The PS3 and PS Vita versions are cross-buy enabled.%Gallery-194079%
Retro City Rampage adds mod support, 'Retro+' enhanced graphics
A new update for Retro City Rampage on PC adds mod support, allowing players to experience a small slice of creator Brian Provinciano's life by creating their own vehicles, characters, fonts and color palettes in the game. The update also includes an optional Retro+ mode, upping the visual fidelity with dynamic soft shadows and doubling the number of colors displayed on-screen at once. The Steam version of Retro City Rampage updates automatically; for GOG and DRM-free owners, they'll need to log into their respective download pages and grab the 1.11 update manually. If you have yet to pick up this love letter to video games, Steam has dropped the price to $3.74 until 10am PT today.%Gallery-192390%
Watch Brian Provinciano's Retro City Rampage talk from GDC
One of our favorite talks from GDC was Brian Provinciano's session, in which the indie developer discussed bringing his game, Retro City Rampage, to just about every platform known to man. It's a valuable talk for many reasons, giving a clear picture of what it's like working with The Big Three™ and the types of hurdles a determined indie developer will inevitably hit. Provinciano's determination to port Grand Theft Auto 3 to NES hardware escalated into a love letter to video games and pop culture. While Provinciano hasn't announced his next project yet, he says we should expect more humorous open-world games.
PSN Tuesday: Sleeping Dogs free on PS Plus; Papo & Yo on sale
United Front's open-world action game, Sleeping Dogs, is now available for free to PlayStation Plus members as part of Instant Game Collection. Papo & Yo is available for $9 this week (or $12 if you want the soundtrack tossed in), while Retro City Rampage is down to $7.50. Fatal Frame 2 joins the PS2 Classics list, and a multiplayer demo for Fuse teases Insomniac's latest shooter before its launch later this month. Check the PlayStation Blog for the full list of new content.
Expect more humorous open-world games from Brian Provinciano
"I'm definitely going to be doing more open-world comedy stuff in the future, but it might not be my next game," Retro City Rampage creator Brian Provinciano told Joystiq following a GDC panel where he broke down sales of his game across the various platforms. "I have about four open-world game ideas in my head that I'm passionate about, but I'm also very concerned about jumping into another big project. So I'm sorting out my ideas right now and figuring out if there's a smaller game idea or something different I could do in the middle, just as a palate cleanser. When I do my next big ambitious game, again it'll probably be open-world."While Provinciano is keen on making more games, he wants to "let the dust settle" on Retro City Rampage before diving into his next game. We probably won't see his next project in 2013, unless it's a smaller-scale game. "I would love to ship another game this year, but the only way for that to happen is if I get a small idea and everything just falls into place."Art was one thing Provinciano had strong opinions about regarding his next project. He doesn't want to become "typecast" as the pixel-art guy – and he wants future games to place a bigger emphasis on art and audio."I had an amazing time working with the artist and the audio person on Retro City Rampage, and I really love art and audio so I want to put more of an emphasis on those in the next games – higher production value. As much as I love doing art – so I found this artist that was doing amazing art and it was way better than me, I would still do some of the art because I love doing it and it's fun, but now I'm thinking differently. I would rather have amazing art way beyond my capabilities and have it all done by other people than have some half-assed art I did myself, just for the sake of saying 'I did it myself.' So one of the big goals in my next games is to have really high-quality art and – as much as I do love pixel stuff, and I may do revisit that in different degrees at some point – again, I want to do different art styles, to show to the world that I'm not just a pixel-art guy."Provinciano said that PlayStation 4 is on the table as a potential platform for upcoming games. At a previous panel, Provinciano confirmed he would also work with PS Vita in the future.
XBLA sale: Mark of the Ninja, Trials and more cheap until Apr. 9
Another sale has spread across Xbox Live Arcade, running until April 9. The sale's highlight is 50% off Mark of the Ninja from Klei Entertainment – one of Joystiq's favorite games of 2012 – bringing it down to 600 MS Points ($7.50).Other cheap contenders include Trials Evolution for 800 MS Points ($10) and some discounted Pinball FX 2 tables. There's also Dust: An Elysian Tale and Deadlight for 600 MS Points ($7.50) to consider.On top of this promotion highlighting Microsoft Studios games, there's also the ongoing Xbox Live Arcade Deal of the Week sale. Retro City Rampage has been knocked down to 600 MS Points ($7.50) and Quarrel is 200 MS Points ($2.50). The full list of both sales can be seen through the source links below.
Where Retro City Rampage made its money
During his GDC panel, "One Man, 17 SKUs: Shipping on Every Platform at Once," Retro City Rampage creator Brian Provinciano provided a clear breakdown of the game's fiscal performance across various platforms.PSN was where Provinciano saw most of his profit come in: over $600,000 earned across over 35,000 units sold on PSN. These numbers do not account for PlayStation Plus downloads and the period of time during which RCR was offered for free with membership.The PC platform yielded the second-highest revenue for Retro City Rampage, earning over $400,000 from over 40,000 copies sold – the majority sold on Steam. Xbox Live Arcade came third with around $200,000 earned across 15,000 units sold, and WiiWare earned under $10,000 with fewer than 2,000 units sold. After the panel, Provinciano told me sales currently sit around 97,000 total, and that he anticipates total sales will exceed 100,000 next week.Provinciano said he spent the most development time on the Xbox Live Arcade port, on a platform he called the most expensive. "Knowing what I know now, I would've skipped it," he said. Though he considered the WiiWare version a $20,000 gift to fans, the XBLA port ended up costing more.Update: Brian got in touch to tell us some of the numbers in his panel were a bit off thanks to an Excel issue. "Looks like Excel didn't line up the bars up correctly." The WiiWare version sold under 2,000 units, he tells us. "It's also sold significantly more than 35K on PSN, 40K on PC and 15K units on each of the other platforms."
Overheard@GDC: 'Absolutely'
The PlayStation Vita Development panel featured a lineup of veteran Vita developers, who for an hour espoused the benefits of working with Sony and getting a game on its handheld platform. The panel featured Brian Provinciano of Retro City Rampage, Bobby King of Pinball Arcade, Chris Harvey of Guacamelee and Richard Hogg of Frobisher Says, and it was moderated by Gaijin Games' Alex Neuse.Neuse was interested in the panelists' answers since Runner 2 is on its way to Vita sometime in the summer. To help set his mind at ease, he asked the developers if their next games would show up on Vita."Yes," they all said. "Absolutely," one of them added. When Neuse later asked the crowd who was considering developing for Vita, a sea of hands shot straight up. For those interested in developing for Vita, a Sony representative suggested this website.
Indie Spring Sale bounces onto Steam
From now through March 29, Steam will be hosting a cavalcade of discounted indie games, both old standbys and newcomers alike, as part of its Indie Spring Sale. The list of discounted games (just click on "Specials") is as long as it is jam packed with great deals.For instance, 25 percent off of Kentucky Route Zero is something you can have in your life right now, as is the opportunity to buy To The Moon, Home or Jamestown for less than $5 each. Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien, Super Hexagon, Proteus, Retro City Rampage, VVVVVV; the list of discounted greatness goes on and on. There's even quite a few options for you Linux gamers out there, so apologize to your wallet and start restocking your gaming retirement fund.
WiiWare version of Retro City Rampage is a '$20,000 gift' to fans
Developer Brian Provinciano doesn't expect to make any money from the launch of Retro City Rampage on Nintendo's WiiWare – in fact, he stands to lose $20,000 in development costs alone, with little chance of seeing a return."Between the office rent, hardware, insurance, game ratings and other costs, had I not done the WiiWare version, I could've saved around $20,000 – not even including my salary in porting it," Provinciano tells Nintendo Life. "And as it stands, virtually no games hit the threshold these days, so it's only being released as fan service. A $20,000 gift to the fans."The loss comes down to a few odd requirements Nintendo places on WiiWare launches: The developer must have a designated office space, even for a one-man operation, and he gets paid only if the game sells a certain number of copies. Unless that sales threshold is hit, "you don't get paid a cent," as Provinciano puts it. These regulations have been tweaked for future platforms, he says, and Nintendo deserves kudos for listening to its content creators."They listen to feedback and take action to improve things if there's a better way. In both cases, the original policies had the best intentions, but turned out to be a bit problematic."Regardless, Provinciano launched Retro City Rampage on WiiWare on February 28 because he wanted to keep his promise that the game would come to a Nintendo console: "I'm happy to see it finally out, and the many happy players. That said, I encourage everyone to buy it! I'm crossing my fingers that it will hit the threshold at least in one region."Retro City Rampage is holding its own on Vita, PS3, Steam and XBLA, in that order.
