Hello. I'm Jake Riley. I’m making a game based on the video game crash of 1983. The idea for this project has been in my head for quite a while now. It's been in inactive development during that time. Recently, I've decided to get more serious about making it and actually talk about it. This game takes place in a Wreck-It-Ralph-style universe where video game characters are sentient. It's a story-driven 2D platformer that will take you into the world of a poorly made Atari 2600 game during the video game crash of 1983. The project is called “Randy’s Crazy Mission!”, which is also the title of the Atari game it's set in. The game was made by a fictional sucker company to tie-in with their brand’s cartoon commercials. Think something like that old Tootsie Pop ad. It’s like how Coke and other brands made tie-in games for the Atari.
Aesthetic
As you're about to see (or have seen if you've already scrolled down), even though this project is set in an Atari 2600 game, it won’t look like one. Considering this game has a lot of dialogue and humor, and considering my background in hand-drawing, I didn't want it to have the very basic visual style of the 2600. I decided to give it a 70s animation art style instead, since the game within this game is based on 70s cartoon commercials. That’s how the characters actually perceive their world. Sources of influence include the classic cartoon Tootsie Pop commercial, Schoolhouse Rock!, and The Point! (not sure how many of you’d know about that last one). There'll even be a filter to make the 70s-style animation look older and more authentic. The 70s cartoon style fits the time period of the Atari 2600 well.
The presentation will still have elements of the signature pixelated 2600 look however. The HUD and text will look like they came straight from an old Atari game, some sound effects will use the Atari 2600 sound, and the characters' Atari sprites (what they actually look like on TV screens) will come up in certain places. Dialogue prompts will use NPCs' Atari sprites. Randy's 2600 sprite will appear on the grey HUD bar on the top of the screen when players can interact with something. And, the very beginning of the game will look like an actual Atari 2600 title, before flashing to the 70s cartoon style seconds later to highlight the contrast. The 70s cartoon style and retro Atari look both come together to create an interesting blend of aesthetics. Here's a picture of some of the characters' Atari sprites I made:
Story
Randy, the player character of both this project and his in-universe game, is a living mushroom. He's the mascot of the brand that created him and his advergame. He's also partially an analogue of myself. Sadly, he's sometimes pushed-around, insulted, and even outright ignored by his family and treated differently than his brothers, even though he's the main character of the game they live in. Unfortunately, this is based on how my own family have always been to me. Randy wants to put an end to the insulting treatment his own family gives him, and get even with his brothers .
There's a conflict that's happening while Randy's game is on the shelf in yet another disappointed buyer's home. Yeah, the game was returned to the store repeatedly. Randy wants to solve this conflict to gain the respect and appreciation from his family that he should have. Randy figures that solving this conflict himself without the aid of his family will make them end their negative and dismissive attitude towards him. The times he's been controlled by someone in the real world accomplishing a fake, programmed plot don't count as something Randy meaningfully did.
Also, bringing the video game crash of 1983 into this, the characters who live in the game within this game are aware of the video game industry. A big focus of this is the reactions that certain creeps who live in the game have to the then-current video game c****, and how it affects Randy's mind. That's all I'll say right now. I'm keeping a lot of the story under wraps for the time being.
Oh, one more thing though! After the start of 1983, the characters, through a few things, discovered even more of how broken their game is. This is relevant as well.
Gameplay
Moving on to the gameplay, the game within this game is poorly made, as I said earlier. When players boot this game up for the first time, they get exactly what the game is in-universe. Though, it's using the 70s cartoon art style, just as the story is. It starts out purposefully frustrating and shoddy, what lots of people associate with games around the time of the crash. If you can tolerate beating the six levels, the real game will begin. It's actual story will start after the game's put on the shelf by disappointed customer number whatever.
The interesting thing is that, during the story, you replay all six levels (with a few more courses thrown in), but they'll be better. Stuff will be added to the levels to improve them, and alleviations to the previously frustrating gameplay will take some edge off. On top of that, story cutscenes will take place in them, you can talk to NPCs (who just stand there in the in-universe game), there'll be new NPCs, and there'll be actual music playing in the stages. There'll even be moments to take advantage of the game's shoddiness, and there'll also be gameplay nods to classic games of it's time period. There will be a couple of creative liberties when it comes to it actually being on the 2600, but not too much.
Closing Words
I will admit, this is a pretty strange concept for a game. That's why I'm planning to make a demo as a sorta proof of concept. To help me get more consistent with the game's development, I created a website focused on discussing Randy's Crazy Mission! in detail. Hopefully, that'll lead to the project entering active development. I get more into where the game's currently at in development and why it hasn't been in active development yet in the first blog post of my site. I talk about things not mentioned in this post over on my blog, so you should go read it. Also, I made another DevLog on the indie game development site TIGSource. Hopefully, you'll follow along as I talk more about this game about the adventure of a mushroom, moth, squirrel, and dog! Yeah, again, this is a weird game.
Here's the link to my blog: https://jakerileygamedevblog.com/
Art
Here's the game's logo:
Now here's art of Randy himself:
I particularly like the way he looks when he's ducking.
Also, there's going to be a ton of different over-the-top faces he makes when getting hit, each one being randomly selected every time.
Y'know, I originally created Randy for another game idea I had brewing in my mind until I started thinking of Randy's Crazy Mission!, to which I then scrapped the old idea. He wasn't going to be the main character in that game, but he was still fairly important. He was also going to look a little different. I may or may not talk further on that old idea in the future. There's a reason why I scrapped it after all. I liked the Randy's Crazy Mission! concept more. I decided to reuse a few things from the old idea for use in this game though.
Anyway, here are some mockups I made of what this game will look like:
Now, this may look like standard 2D game fare, but I'm planning for the cutscenes to be quite dynamic. There'll be zoom-ins, close-up shots, cutaways, and all that fancy stuff. It'll almost be like you're watching an actual cartoon. Fitting, considering that the game within this game is based on cartoons.
That's all for now.
“Y’AAAAAAALL DONE GETTIN’ YERSELVES PREPAAAAAAARED!?!?!?!?”
