All those of you who are at least 25 years of age and older cannot fail to know and remember your first games with Tamagotchi or Game Boy. Not only these, but also many other gadgets and small electronic objects are the protagonists of Retro Gadgets, the next product launched by Evil Licorice, born from the merger of Studio Evil and Licorice.
We have interviewed for you Luca Marchetti e Marco Bancalealready parents of projects such as Kingdom e Cane Magic Zero. What awaits us in their next work, coming out on Steam on November 30th?
We discovered it during a nice chat with them, among anecdotes and curiosities about how this new IP was born.
How did you get the idea for Retro Gadgets? What inspired you?
Luca: the idea was born about 3 years ago, I had been working on Plasma for five years, a sandbox, in my free time I played fantasy consoles, I used Arduino and other boards and I also became passionate about emulators. I wanted to make an emulator similar to these and so I had the idea of making a “meta” one to make a fantasy console and a gadget and merge them into one product. In my little free time I created it and showed it to Marco, I have known him for 25 years. Now I’ve lived in Iceland for 20 years, but we were in two companies in Bologna together, we entered the games industry and did some projects together, until we joined a video game team.
But do you want to know how we met? At the time there were the IBS networks, I was 17 or 18 and I had my Amiga to talk to people who connected, it was like Discord ante litteram. One by one they left their message. One evening a certain Marco wrote to me and I asked where he lives, like this I discover that it is only 50 meters away from me. And from there we exchanged more and more opinions, until we crossed paths up to today.
References are made to several famous objects, such as Tamagotchi, a symbol of 90s culture for all the children of the time. What role did this game have for you as children and as an eventual inspiration? Other games you remember fondly?
Luca: Our first games had this retro flavor of creation and discovery, and at the time you could carry them around; Now the idea is to keep your gadget always with you on the screen, as well as there is also mighty cobra and you start playing when you work or at least you’re at the PC. From an electronic point of view, that culture has crystallized in the imagination of many people who may have arrived even after they left, who have not experienced it. Arduino and others have also made their way into collectors’ homes. There are no gadgets already made inside because everyone then creates their own as they wish.
What relationship do you have with retro gaming and what does it mean for you?
Marco: as a game designer I often take ideas from videogames of the time to get inspiration, such as Monkey Island for example. For the pixel art we had several references.
Luca: I instead think back to the arcades, with coins in bars, to which I was tied earlier. Among other things, I have an arcade at home, it’s an aesthetically beautiful product for me, and it’s even more beautiful to see my two daughters playing with it.
Compared to the other projects you have made so far, what is your perception of this one?
Luca: is perfectly positioned in the production area, also for building and electronics; I always do things I like and never one alike, we always do different things.
What do you expect from the gaming community?
Luke: We had a huge impact with the Steam Next Fest event and a great public reception, so we kept the demo open even after this event because it was received very well. I thought it was far more niche and I was afraid players would be interested, but then there was too much entry step. Even today, however, we not only have an active community, but also a documentation of the game made by us which is not beautiful, and I don’t even think we will improve it because the players did it better than us and they are also contributing to it by organizing among themselves.
Marco: I don’t think there will be a big difference in reception between demo and final version. The only doubt is how many people will be able to appreciate because the entry barrier is not too high, but we’ll see how it goes with the release of Retro Gadgets.