How Frogun Balances Its Retro Inspirations with Modern Sensibilities
Many popular retro-inspired indie games pull from third- and fourth-generation consoles like the NES and SNES, respectively. The Binding of Isaac emulates The Legend of Zelda's dungeon layouts for example, and titles like Shovel Knight or The Messenger are steeped in the era's pixel art style. Yet the release of Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X mark the ninth console generation, which means «retro» covers a broader scope. Molegato's newly released Frogun pulls much of its identity from the fifth-gen PlayStation and N64.
Despite growing up with 8-bit consoles, Spanish developer Raul Martinez Garrido said the PlayStation came along right when he was beginning to get more analytical with games. It also stuck around longer given his «economically humble family» was unable to buy a PS2. Though Garrido would play games like Ratchet & Clank at friends' houses, the original PlayStation is «a big part of me,» with titles like Crash Bandicoot or Mega Man Legends becoming the main inspiration for Frogun. Game Rant spoke to Garrido about designing a retro-inspired game and balancing it with modern tenets.
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Frogun began following the three-year development cycle of Garrido's Mario Kart and Crash Team Racing-inspired Supersonic Tank Cats. It was meant to be a short, polished platformer, but early positive reception led to dealings with publisher Top Hat Studios and a successful Kickstarter campaign that allowed Garrido to focus entirely on the project.
In the adventure-platformer, Renata is a young girl who takes on her parents' latest invention — a talking frog-themed gun that fires a grappling tongue — in order to
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