Old School Gamer chats with veteran game developers Pascal Bestebroer, OrangePixel Games and Julian Scott, Space Pants Games, on their new Sega Genesis title, Gunslugs
About Gunslugs:
Gunslugs is an action-packed, fast-paced run-and-jump game with a rogue-like permadeath element that centers around the escapades of a group of slugs aiming to uncover the secrets of the enigmatic Black Duck army and halt their war efforts.
The game, released for the first time on Sega, offers physical copies with a box, a full-color manual, and a cartridge.
Old School Gamer: How was this game born?
Pascal Bestebroer: The original version of the game was actually inspired by a racing game: Split/Second. Which had vibrant colors, chaos, and destruction, and that for some reason made me create this chaotic platformer with colorful graphics and lots of explosions!
Old School Gamer: What is your role in the game?
Bestebroer: You are part of the Gunslugs, a group of action heroes trying to defend the planet from the Black Duck Army! You take down their signal towers, defeat the many minions of the Black Duck Army, and try to stop them from raising a lot of evil!
Old School Gamer: What has development been like?
Julian Scott: It was a fairly straightforward conversion, with a few things which needed to be changed for the Genesis version, for instance the number of sprites on a horizontal line would cause flickering, so we changed some heights to reduce that. I blogged the process: https://
Old School Gamer: What makes this game special?
Bestebroer: The frantic action and easy to get into gameplay where people can easily grasp the basics and just forget about the time!
Old School Gamer: What games influenced this one the most?
Bestebroer: That would be Split/Second!
Old School Gamer: Any fun stories or wild moments during development?
Bestebroer: no.
Scott: never.
Old School Gamer: What were the major lessons learned?
Scott: We learned that there are a lot of people who love to see more modern games on older platforms. This is nice, as I enjoy converting them. (as well as making new ones).
Old School Gamer: Do you think preserving older gameplay mechanics in new games is important?
Bestebroer: I don’t really think about it like that. When playing the old games there is usually a lot of nostalgia going on with the person playing it. Newer games trying to tie into that old school feeling are often best designed with newer and more current game mechanics draped onto the arcadey feeling of the old days.
Old School Gamer: How have your previous experiences in industry helped this game?
Scott: I made Sega Genesis games in the 1990s, things like Arch Rivals, Wacky Races, and Waterworld. Although I’d forgotten a lot since then, that experience contributed hugely to the speed of development.
Old School Gamer: How do you want this game to ultimately be remembered? [l
Bestebroer: As an awesome little time-waster with catchy tunes and a good feeling!
Old School Gamer: What’s next?
Bestebroer: Heroes of Loot! This one should tax the Genesis a bit more, and give a gameplay experience which isn’t often found on this hardware, I think.
Old School Gamer: Anything else you’d like to add?
Bestebroer: Drink more water.
Scott: Buy more games.
Patrick Hickey, Jr., is the founder and editor-in-chief of ReviewFix.com and a lecturer of English and journalism at Kingsborough Community College, in Brooklyn, New York. Over the past decade, his video game coverage has been featured in national ad campaigns by top publishers the likes of Nintendo, Deep Silver, Disney and EA Sports. His book series, "The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult and Classic Game Developers," from McFarland and Company, has earned praise from Forbes, Huffington Post, The New York Daily News and MSG Networks. He is also a former editor at NBC and National Video Games Writer at the late-Examiner.com
