Jay Pavilina, head of Exploding Rabbit studios, has been working on a free-to-play tribute to retro Nintendo titles for years now called Super Mario Bros Crossover (SMBC). The game developer has recently decided to utilize his skills at recreating the texture of old school games with a new title backed on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.
The new game, called Super Retro Squad, will feature more than 40 levels of 8 and 16-bit gameplay across eight worlds. Each of the characters in the game are heavily inspired by Nintendo characters like Link, Samus, and the Super Mario Brothers.
“Retro games are important,” said Pavlina in a follow-up video on the project’s Kickstarter page. “It puts the focus more on the gameplay, which is what games are all about.”
The campaign goal has already been surpassed at the modest amount of $10,000. Pavlina has recently added a slew of new rewards and “stretch goals” at certain donation intervals. Rewards for donations include digital copies of the game upon release, secret levels featuring backers’ names written in coins, and even personalized thank you dance videos from the developer himself.
Pavlina sees this Kickstarter project as an opportunity to put all the skills he’s learned over the past three years working on SMBC into an all new, non-infringing product based on the same engine.
“After spending that much time working on it I just kind of realized that I can’t distribute the game in any way; I can’t sell it or make money in any way,” said the soft spoken creator. “I don’t own the characters or anything so it’s kind of depressing to spend all that time working on something that you don’t even own.”
In the video Pavlina assured SMBC fans that his new project will not be a replacement, and his small studio will continue to create content for both titles.
The creator said that he plans SRS to be a continuing series of games, each based on a classic Nintendo title, and in the future some may even revolve entirely around an individual character. Pavlina plans to release the game on Mac and Windows, as well as Android and iOS mobile platforms. A beta of Super Retro Squad is expected to be available by during the holiday season, on track for a full release scheduled sometime early next year.
