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.

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.

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:

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As you can see in the screenshots, all the graphics have been redone in order to take advantage of the power the Playstation 3 provides. Retro/Grade will look amazing on your HDTV because it runs at Full HD (1080p) with anti-aliasing at a silky smooth 60 frames per second.

On the gameplay side, we’ve been very busy working to ensure that it is the most fun possible. After some serious focus testing, any rough spots in the gameplay have been smoothed out. Our composer, Skyler McGlothlin, has worked hard to improve all our original tracks for the game. We’ve adjusted the gameplay patterns for maximum enjoyment. In order to help people wrap their minds around our time bending concepts, the tutorial has been greatly improved.

If you are going to the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle on September 3-5, stop by booth 3008! Retro/Grade will be playable, and we are giving out posters and info cards. As well, you can win a Retro/Grade t-shirt by beating our challenge.

On top of all that, we are having a contest to get your name in the credits for Retro/Grade! The gamers with the top five scores using the guitar controller and the top five scores with the DUALSHOCK 3 at PAX will be mentioned in Retro/Grade’s credits. It should be a great time, so be sure to stop by!

At this point, you may be thinking, “How on earth do you play a game in reverse?” That is a very good question, and after many years of temporal physics research, we’ve finally come up with the solution. As you can see from our screenshots, Retro/Grade looks like a really exciting shoot ‘em up. However, it actually plays more like a rhythm game. In order to protect the health of the space/time continuum, Rick must undo his actions exactly the reverse of the way he performed them in the first place. That means he has to get in the appropriate space lane from which his shot was fired and press the shoot button at the appropriate time. As well, he must avoid blocking the path of the enemy shots as they return to the enemy’s guns. If he blocks their path, it creates a paradox since he is stopping the shot before it was ever fired. All of the gameplay is timed to original retro themed tunes by Skyler McGlothlin, aka acclaimed electronica artist Nautilis. Retro/Grade earned a nomination for Excellence in Audio at the IGF because of our great tunes.

One feature in Retro/Grade that we are really excited about is the ability to pilot Rick’s ship using a guitar controller. You can use the fret buttons to move Rick’s ship to the desired space lane, and the strum bar acts as the shoot button. It’s a lot of fun to use the guitar, but it is equally fun with the DualShock 3 controller if you don’t have any guitar controllers handy. Players that play a lot more rhythm games will probably feel more comfortable wielding a plastic guitar whereas shoot ‘em up junkies looking for an innovative twist on the beloved genre will feel more comfortable with their trusty DualShock 3.

Retro/Grade features many innovative power ups including the ability to reverse time (again). You may be thinking, “But wait Matt… Time is already reversed!” This power up allows you to reverse the reversed flow of time, so time moves forward! Although that sounds confusing, the gameplay effect is really exciting! It allows you to undo any mistakes you’ve mde made and repeat a section again. This is extremely helpful for when you hit a hard section that requires a little more practice or you lose the rhythm and start making mistakes. Once you play Retro/Grade, you are sure to bemoan that other rhythm games don’t have that feature.

All of these compelling features earned us a nomination for Excellence in Game Design at the Independent Games Festival. There’s plenty more to get excited about that we aren’t ready to announce just yet. Stay tuned, and we will update you Playstation Blog readers with more information as development progresses! If you want to stay up to date, be sure to follow 24 Caret Games on Facebook!