“I think one of the problems with Guitar Hero and Rock Band is they really didn’t take it to the next level. They really didn’t say, “Okay, we’ve got gameplay you like, now we’re gonna do something new and fresh and cool, and build off that.” I feel like it’s just song, song, song, song, song, and not like, “Here’s something cool or a new direction we could take it in.” So that’s one of the things with Retro/Grade, we wanted to create something new, we wanted to take the rhythm genre in a new direction.”
Matt Gilgenbach is the co-founder of 24 Caret Games and gameplay director for Retro/Grade. The reverse space shooting rhythm game took us by surprise, and we managed to get a hold of Matt who was nice enough to have an in-depth discussion involving the development of the game and his love for Panzer Dragoon!
In this lengthy 53 minute interview, join Benjamin Howie and Matt Gilgenbach to hear the story of the game’s long development process, why it pushes the PlayStation 3 to its limits, and how Retro/Grade rises where other rhythm games have fallen.
A YouTube version of the interview can be found here!
Listen:
[powerpress]
Show Notes:
Contributors to this interview:
- Matt Gilgenbach – Co-founder of 24 Caret Games and Gameplay Director for Retro/Grade.
- Benjamin Howie – Senior Reviews Editor for BagoGames.
- Retro/Grade soundtrack (Buy here!)– Skyler McGlothlin
00:00 – The Origins of Retro/Grade
08:24 – Why PlayStation 3?
13:46 – Gameplay Discussion
19:00 – Challenge Mode
26:35 – The Choice of Music
32:10 – Why Guitar Hero fell?
34:14 – User Generated Content?
37:15 – The emotions of a long development process
39:18 – The ups and downs of “Feature Creep”
43:40 – The after-math of release
44:22 – What’s next?
49:30 – Matt’s favorite games!
53:09 – Will Matt make good on his promise?