Retro/Grade at PAX with Great Swag and Contests

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Retro/Grade at PAX with Great Swag and Contests

Hello Playstation.Blog readers! We’ve been hard at work making a must-have PS3 downloadable game for PSN, so it’s been a while since our last PlayStation.Blog update. If you’re like me and you can barely remember your own name, let me refresh your memory about Retro/Grade.

Retro/Grade is an innovative fusion between a rhythm game and a sidescrolling shooter that has received the IndieCade audience award as well as two Independent Game Festival nominations. The game begins when you have just singlehandedly fended off an alien invasion, but all the destruction damaged the space/time continuum, which caused the flow of time itself to reverse. What would have been the final boss is actually the beginning of your backwards journey.

Since time is going in reverse, you must undo your actions in the space skirmish to protect the health of the space time continuum. This means you have to dodge enemy projectiles returning to the enemies that fired them while un-firing your projectiles as they return to your ship. It is easier than it sounds since everything is timed to the beat of the original retro game inspired soundtrack.

retrograde3Retro/Grade for PS3 (PSN)

If you have a guitar controller collecting dust, brush it off because you can use it to play Retro/Grade! (Don’t worry. Gamepads are supported as well.) If you are having trouble imagining how a game can be played in reverse or how to pilot a ship with a guitar controller, you’re in luck. Retro/Grade will be playable in booth 6415 at PAX Prime later this month, so stop by our booth and give it a try.

At PAX, we are having a high score contest where the winners will be forever immortalized in the credits of the game. To enter the high score contest, you need a Reverse Pilot ID Card. If pre-register on our website, we will print a custom reverse pilot ID card with your picture and call sign that you can pick up at PAX. If you forget to pre-register, you can still compete, but you will miss out on your chance to have a cool custom card. In addition, we will be giving out t-shirts to people who beat a challenge.

PAX 2011 Retro/Grade ID card

If you can’t make it to PAX to check out the awesome progress we’ve made, here’s a quick update. We’ve added some amazing boss fights with crazy reverse attacks. Your spaceship can now unshoot plasma beams. We now have motion blur to give you the feel that you are reverse rocketing through space at breakneck speeds. We’ve added new exciting locales for backwards battles. We’ve added all of this without sacrificing antialiased 1080p running at 60 frames a second! Check out this video to see some cool new stuff in action:

If you want to make sure you have all the latest and greatest info as we announce it, become a fan on facebook or follow us on twitter. I hope to see you at PAX!

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28 Comments

17 Author Replies

  • Private Video eh?

  • nm, must have been an error on my end. Sorry.

  • Wow, that’s a very creative way to immortalize players! Great idea! I’ll check this game out, it seems very good. Please release a demo version too. ;-)

  • I’m looking forward to this game but my goodness where is the release date. its been over a year and nothing has been talked about it when it comes to releasing it.

    • I’m very sorry it’s taking so long to finish. We are planning on releasing it when it meets our high expectations, so narrowing down a release window is difficult. We are definitely getting close to the end of development though. I think you’ll find it’s worth the wait when it comes out!

  • AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • WAITING FOR D DEMO!!) OH YEAH!!

  • ” time is going in reverse” I DONT GET THIS?!!!

  • I LIKE THE GRAPHICS!!!!!!!!!!!!! SWEEEEEEEET!!!!!!!

  • RELEASE DATE!!!!!RELEASE DATE!!!!!!!!!

    • I’m glad to hear you are so excited about the game. We are working really hard on the game, and it’s really coming together as you can see from the video, but we aren’t ready to announce a release date yet.

  • i already did my PILOT ID card!!!!!!!!!!

  • @MATT U ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Matt, man…you guys did a great job mixing retro games with musical games and a top cherry as the way the game is played!
    I`ll give it a try for sure!
    If this game has co-op features I`m sold. If not, can you tell if a DLC for it is possible?

    Sorry about the bad english.

    • Hi Ivan,

      Thank you for your kind words. We are definitely interested in supporting Retro/Grade with DLC, but right now, we are focusing on making it the best game possible at launch.

  • And I support you guys on that. Take the time you need to make the best ut of it.
    It`s just that I`m really into co-op games, and I`d just like to know if you guys ever tought of co-op.

    ˆˆ.

    And tnx for the reply.

  • Woah, wasn’t this game announced like a year ago?!

    • We actually announced in 2009. We have a very small development team and high standards, so it has taken us a while to create the game we want to make.

  • This looks incredible – I’ll be looking forward to it.

    I think the trickiest part is the fail-state, and the rewind feature looks cool, but I also hope you can unlock a no-fail state (and maybe set it to super-easy). I’m always up for a challenge myself, but sometimes I want to show friends a game without it intimidating them too much.

    • I’m glad to hear you are looking forward to it. Creating a game that is accessible to everyone is very important to us, so we have several features to help new players.

      Firstly, we have a Retro/Rocket powerup that allows you to reverse the flow of time (causing it to go forward), so you can undo your mistakes. The Retro/Rocket can be used even you reach the fail screen assuming you have Retro/Fuel remaining.

      We also have a wide variety of difficulties ranging from really easy to brutally difficult, so you should be able to find a skill level that is fun for everyone.

      In addition we have a practice mode, where you have both unlimited health and Retro/Fuel, so I’m sure you will be able to show off the game to your friends without any problems.

  • Uh found a problem with your logic.

    If time is going in reverse, you should start out with the maximum amount of points possible, then who ever gets closest to 0 points is the winner.

    Like Golf low score wins.

    Most games you get points for destroying enemies, this game you should lose points for undestroying them.

    So says Phillyblunz.

  • Actually it looks like in game your score does go backwards, so a high score competition rewards the losers?

    Is this game 3D? I need another great 3D game like Superstardust HD, probably some of the best 3D out there to date.

    If you go 3D, please let us turn the slider all the way to insane eye watering 3D.

    Too many dev’s think they know whats best and gimp the 3D to “save my eyes”, you let me worry about that.

    If 3D aint right in your face, whats the point???????

    • That is a good catch. The score does start at the max and counts down. For the PAX contest, players are competing to lose the most number of points. This way we can compare scoring from different levels and difficulties (since they all start at different points).

      We aren’t ready to announce anything about 3D yet.

  • Look really great, been chomping at the bit for this one :)

    Who is doing the music? Are the audio assets 24-bit and/or losslessly-compressed?

    Can we also play with the Rock Band 3 keyboard controller? or the drum controller for that matter? would be crazy fun for co-op players to all be on different Rock Band instruments!

    lastly, 1080p native graphics? what kind of AA (if any)?

    • Hi plaztiksyke,

      I’m glad to hear you are excited for Retro/Grade. The music is buy Skyler McGlothlin. He’s a versatile musician who’s done hip hop as Malcom Kipe, rock in Shapes as Fangs, but my personal favorite is his electronic music project Nautilis.

      We haven’t decided on the audio format and compression options yet, but we are committed to ensuring the audio sounds great.

      It is only playable with the guitar controller and the DualShock.

      The graphics are 1080p native and using morphological anti-aliasing (MLAA) similar to God of War 3.

  • @17 “…insane eye watering 3D.”

    O_O …. YES

    BTW this game look phenomenal, would have loved to give this game a try at PAX but
    passes sold out (so soon too!)

    Oh well, I hope a demo gets release on the store soon

  • Awesome!
    Really can’t wait to play :-)

  • cross game chat

    love how dunces like Matt Gilgenbach replay to this blog post but the one about THE S***ty update is left out to hang dry with no responses to the angry customer’s like me

    cross game chat
    cross game chat
    cross game chat

    that is all

    • Hi DJMonkay,

      I work for 24 Caret Games, a small independent developer that has 3 employees that is developing Retro/Grade. I don’t work for Sony, so I can’t answer your questions about the update – just Retro/Grade. As an independent developer, I like that I can directly engage our audience, and I am thankful that the Playstation blog provides me a great forum for doing just that.

  • Retro/Grade! Where have you been? It’s been so long. I was worried the game had been canceled. I loved the demo on steam. I can’t wait for it to come out.

    • We’ve been hard at work for a very long time. The game has come a long way from the original steam demo, and I think everything has been redone at least once. Although it’s been a long wait, we think it’ll be worth it. :-D

  • As a bonus, will we be able to play the game in forward mode as it was “originally” played?

  • Two things.

    1. I’m interested in getting this but, how much would this cost?

    2. Will this game support trophies? *crosses fingers*

  • From what I can see, it is worth it already. And I can see a lot of the changes, or rather improvements. Thank you so much for the long awaited update.

  • Oh man you guys, i’ve been waiting a long time to hear more about this game.

    Please let this game be an example i can bring up about not rushing to a release date, When the game is perfect I won’t even care about how long it took anymore, i’ll just be thankful you guys did such good work making a great game

    • We’ve been working on it for about 3 years now, so we certainly haven’t been rushing it out. I think you’ll be pleased with the final product.

  • well im sorry

  • Loved the visual overhaul that you guys showed off on the Giant Bomb Quick Look, so I can’t wait for this to finally be released.

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