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.
How Frogun Captures the Past
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 save them from an archeological dig gone wrong. The initial inspiration for Frogun's grappling mechanics wasn't an obvious choice that fans often bring up, according to Garrido; it was the Strike Chain weapon from Mega Man X2 (Garrido expresses a particular love of the X and Zero franchises).
"It was a promising weapon when you got it, and it was used for a few optional items, but felt terrible to use. I wanted to make something like that, but fun and useful. Everything flowed from that single mechanic!"
The levels Renata explores in the fly-infested Beelzebub ruins are open-ended and exploratory, taking notes from Spyro the Dragon and MediEvil - as well as modern titles like Super Mario 3D World. Originally Frogun was meant to be a minimalist Sokoban-style game (those classic puzzlers about moving boxes around a warehouse) with minor platforming, but Garrido said this was "too restrictive" - inevitably drawing too much attention to its puzzle elements.
Another big selling-point for Frogun on platforms like Steam is extras like a photo mode and two-player duel arenas. Garrido feels "extras are always good," but can be hard to make unobtrusive if the ideas stray far from a game's gimmicks. For his latest project, Garrido tried to adopt the approach of classic PlayStation franchise Ape Escape. By putting unlockable mini-games in their own separate area, "It was like a separate game you could play if you wanted, rather than a main mission that forced you to play a different game before you continued your adventure."
How Frogun Evolves its Inspirations
Of course, Frogun is not merely emulating the past. Garrido tries to add his own spin on genres, and this release is his largest yet. "Not only on terms of outreach and platforms, but also length, polish, and sheer number of features." Aesthetically, he said Frogun isn't intended to look exactly like PlayStation games; rather how people might imagine they looked "with our rose-tinted nostalgia glasses." Garrido compares it to an HD rendition of Mega Man Legends.
In terms of gameplay, Garrido hoped to capture the "good bits" of old 3D platformers like simple controls and "function-oriented level design," but with modern controls like a rotating camera via the right stick. He credits Top Hat with not only handling Frogun's console ports, but also providing "deeper assistance on various technical issues" from rewriting shaders and optimizing level geometry to boosting the frame rate and providing quality assurance testing.
"It also needs to be mentioned that all backers of the Kickstarter campaign - including those who, as part of their tier, got to design an enemy, boss, or exploration note - were very crucial to the game. And feedback from the community. All of that is like an extra arm that helped the game be pushed further than would have been possible otherwise."
Though there are future plans brewing, Garrido said he's planning to focus on Frogun a while longer before starting to hint at his next project. "I want to be there with all the players who get it when it launches," he said, on top of providing patches and - maybe - extra content updates. Regardless, the dev is excited to see his game hit shelves, and hopes that players appreciate its retro sense of adventure.
Frogun is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.