The Screenwave Media-owned Retroware has recently been establishing itself as a digital publisher specializing in "neo-retro" games - titles that borrow ideas from the past to create new experiences with all the benefits and modern conveniences you'd expect from a contemporary release.
Last year, for example, it was behind the successful release of the excellent Shatterhand & Power Blade-inspired action game Prison City across PC and consoles, and in the future, it also intends to publish various other promising "neo-retro"-themed projects like the Contra-Esque run and gunner Iron Meat, the licensed beat 'em up Toxic Crusaders, and the Castlevania homage/parody The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest.
All of these wear their influences firmly on their sleeve, but in the case of Transylvania Adventure it has occasionally been on the receiving end of some online criticism over just how much it seems to borrow from Konami's series of vampire-slaying titles. So recently we took it upon ourselves to chat with Justin Silverman, the creative director at Retroware, as well as the Prison City and Transylvania Adventure developer Programancer to ask them some questions about their recent collaborations and ultimately why they feel their parody of Castlevania is fair game.
Time Extension: We think a good place to start would be - how did you begin working together?
Silverman: You go ahead and start that Programancer. You know more than me.
Programancer: Oh, yeah. Well, in terms of starting our journey together, Ryan [Schott], who is my boss, reached out and said, 'I like what you're doing,' and I was at a point where I was working primarily just as a hobby. Like it wasn't sustaining itself. I wasn't making any money outside of a little Patreon money. And I basically said, 'Okay, I need to go back to work, so this is gonna go on hold'. And he's like, 'Well, how would you like to continue working on that but also get paid to do it.' So I was like, 'Okay', and that's kind of how it all started.
Time Extension: When did development on The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest originally start?
Programancer: So, the official project start date was May 4th, 2019. But the idea for it had brewed quite a bit before then. I think it was when Bloodstained had been announced, Koji Igarashi [the former lead producer on the Castlevania series] made a comment in some magazine saying basically that he could use Dracula and all that stuff because Konami doesn't own it — it's just public domain and a lot of shared inspiration. But he said he didn't want to retread all of that. And so I remember just saying, 'Okay, well, I will, I guess.' So that's kind of where that all started. And then, yeah, May 4th, I just decided to start it up, see where it goes, and here I am now.
Time Extension: You've been working on Transylvania Adventure for a while, but you also recently released Prison City. Are we right in assuming Transylvania Adventure came first?
Programancer: Yeah, so Simon Quest came first, and you know, it just kind of came to the point with COVID and everything that I needed to do something that I could get out quicker because Simon Quest is such a large game and takes a lot of time and a lot of focus. So I worked on like Dumpy and Bumpy, which is like a little puzzle game, and then Prison City, which I knew I could make pretty quickly, but it still grew in scope to where it took about a year. But yeah, SimonQuest came first, and then Prison City kind of spawned from that.
Time Extension: In terms of Prison City, How has the response to that game been since release? Did it achieve what you set out to do with it?
Silverman: I think it definitely achieved the style and the look. It was definitely popular in the circle. Like, you know, it's not on shelves at every GameStop or it's not lighting the world on fire as much as we hope the other titles and Simon Quest especially do. But, you know, considering it was originally a game jam game that Programancer had made at his own jam, it ended up turning into a full title with, you know, its own really good soundtrack, which almost won Indie Soundtrack of the Year for last year. And it just, you know, it's just a really fun game and homage to all the stuff we liked from the 80s and 90s. So yeah, I think it did well, especially aesthetically, for us. I don't know what you think, Programancer.
Programancer: Well, for me, I think, what I had set out to do with that game is I needed a break from something slow and brooding like TASQ (Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest). And I also wanted to kind of hone a little bit of like my creative process for like designing levels and just the way things look (the amount of contrast between like the backgrounds and foregrounds) and make sure that I'm not getting too far in Simon Quest and not approaching it correctly.
So Prison City exists as kind of like the inverse of that where I wanted to experiment a little bit and go outside of my comfort zone and make sure I could do all of that. And then that kind of brings us now to where I'm at with TASQ and, you know, revamping everything and getting it to a point that I'm happy with for a wider release. I think it accomplished what it needed to do because it all goes back and helps the main project.
Silverman: Yeah, and especially in terms of logistics and Steam pages and all that stuff, Prison City definitely taught us and a lot of our new team members here at Retroware, like, 'Here's how we do this, here's how we do that.'
[Prison City] set up a lot of the operations that are now being used for all the other titles. So it was definitely a landmark game for us in terms of, you know, helping expand the studio.
It set up a lot of the operations that are now being used for all the other titles. So it was definitely a landmark game for us in terms of, you know, helping expand the studio and how we do things and in-person events and how we do a lot of our marketing and email collection and things like that. So Prison City, much like the stuff they make for space shuttles, had a lot of spin-off technologies that helped Programancer's other projects, and also everything else we do here. So, it was a super project worth doing.
Time Extension: We originally spotted the project Twitter back in 2019, and even interviewed you for the (now defunct) British magazine Wireframe a few years ago. It seems like over the years as you've shared more and more of the project, it has evolved a lot from those initial videos you were showing off back then. Would you agree?
Programancer: I mean, it's always been just a straight parody because it was it's kind of poking fun at like the Castlevania one credits and how they have all the fake actor names. You know, it's like Christopher Bee instead of Christopher Lee, and it just runs through that.
It was always kind of a jab at that; let's see how on the nose we can be without being on the nose. But visually, I kind of stopped enjoying working on something that looked too much like Castlevania. I wanted to invoke those memories and those feelings that you had when you first played it, like the way you look back on the game, not so much the one-to-one. And that was a struggle early on. I want to make this more than what it is. And by sticking too true to how all that stuff looked, I'm hindering myself. So I think in spirit, it's still the same. I always thought of it as like, this is more like Zelda than it is like Castlevania, even though it plays like Castlevania. But I think now I'm a lot more okay with having the freedom to make it look different and just expand on what I had wanted to do originally anyway.
I always thought of it as like, this is more like Zelda than it is like Castlevania, even though it plays like Castlevania
Silverman: Yeah, expanding on that, I think for Retroware and definitely for Programancer's titles, we're making these modern retro games. You know, like retro experiences with modern conveniences where you get all the modern things like your proper save states and checkpoints and it's not brutally hard or unless you want it to be. Things like that. And yeah, the games definitely feel like they did when you played them back in the day, but if you, you know, play something like Contra III and then play our game Iron Meat or play Castlevania 2 and play Simon Quest, you see that it's the advancements are just way better and it just feels better to play.
Time Extension: We kind of have to talk about the title and some of the recurring comments we've seen about the game. Konami clearly doesn't own the trademark to the name "Simon Quest", so there's nothing there really for them to go after here legally. But we're wondering, were there any conversations when Retroware came on board, like maybe we should get a new name, or change things up a bit? Or was Retroware just as enthusiastic about leaning into the Castlevania connection?
Silverman: We were more happy. We thought, 'That's perfect'. Because just as gamers, we want more games like that, and they're not being served up. And with it being a parody thing, I love things like the Naked Gun series and all that stuff. I love the parody homages where eventually the parodies and the homages are even better than the original source material.
Spaceballs is a bad example because Star Wars is just really good, but you know, like where you can do something new, but it's like [something else], and that's how we felt about it. And, you know, it's definitely tongue-in-cheek. Like clearly, Quest wasn't the last name of Simon Belmont, you know. So it's supposed to be obvious without being a copyright issue.
But, you know, we looked fully into it before starting and we thought, you know, legally this made sense and it's really funny and it's definitely a parody, so we went with it and Programancer kept going on.
Time Extension: One of the ways the game looks to be different from the Castlevania NES games — apart from the comedy — is the expanded move set. We're wondering — what were kind of the main things that you wanted to add to this?
Programancer: So I mostly just wanted to make it feel a lot better. Like there's something satisfying about having a committed jump and knowing you messed up, but having a way to fix it without sacrificing the weird committed jumps.
So like the backflip, for example, so many people instinctively try to press back and jump just naturally when they make a mistake at a jump. So it's like, 'Why not just make that do something and have it correct you so you don't fall into a pit or something?' And then I have the dodge roll, which isn't implemented in the new version that I'm building yet. But that just made sense to me to be able to duck and then just roll out of the way of something and not take damage from it.
It's just a matter of adding those things and still adding the same sort of risk versus reward that you get from Classicvanias. Like whipping takes time, jumping takes precision. And then you wanna add things like the slide and being able to kick off from the ground when you slide and get a little air. Those things add a little bit of risk, but the reward is better because you can play faster and you can damage enemies.
Time Extension: You've been working on the game for several years now. We're curious — how much has it changed during development since teaming up with Retroware? We imagine that it's probably tempting for you to want to go back and revisit a lot of the stuff you did early on, with the support you have now.
Programancer: Surprisingly, it didn't change a whole lot retroactively because I had always intended on having the slide. And I think the backflip came in late 2019. So it was still pretty early in the project. And it didn't really affect a whole lot in terms of level design. It just kind of added another layer of navigating everything as the player.
So I think I'm kind of lucky there because some people get a ways into a project and they add something that just doesn't fit for everything else, but they want to keep it. But I've lucked out, I think.
Time Extension: And what has the relationship between yourself and Retroware been like since partnering up? How have you benefited from joining with a publisher on Prison City and The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest?
Programancer: Well, it immediately gives me the ability to market everything while still having the freedom to kind of just make what I want. And I think that's a very unusual position to be in with a lot of companies.
Normally, if you work for a studio, a publisher, or any of these places, you typically have a lot of oversight, which I'd fully expect normally. But I've been very lucky in that I'm kind of left to my devices and I'm allowed to make mistakes.
Normally, if you work for a studio, a publisher, or any of these places, you typically have a lot of oversight, which I'd fully expect normally. But I've been very lucky in that I'm kind of left to my devices and I'm allowed to make mistakes.
We do sometimes think tank things and I'm occasionally asked if I want to add something to my game. But, if not, we don't have to add it; we can work around it. I think I've been really lucky. And just being able to have a wider release and have an opportunity to work with dev kits to get games out on consoles, for example, and learn all of that. There's no way to put a price on that.
I'm just in a very lucky position. That's the best way to put it. I can't think of any other studio that would allow me to do what I do the way that Retroware has allowed me to do it.
Time Extension: We're not sure if there's anything you want to add to that, Justin, in terms of what it's been like working together on these two projects.
Silverman: Yeah, so we're definitely insane for letting him do whatever he wants, but it has been working out.
You know, I think we try and help, especially financially and with dev kits and all the other things that we provide, so the dev can just worry about, you know, actually making the game. Because all of us come either from some programming or dev background ourselves or grew up with these games, which really helps. You know, like I played all these games when they came out — I'm 40 years old. So it definitely helps when you're looking at it, like, 'Hey, maybe we should do this. Maybe we should do that. This is the best path. Hey, you're lost in the weeds a little'.
That's especially true on something like Iron Meat [from the developer Ivan Valeryevich Suvorov]. That game's been in development for like five years until we came in and kind of stepped up and helped that dev and gave him a job, basically, and all the resources to do what he needs to do. So the games can come out and they can then move on to the next one and things like that. So as a studio, we're definitely dev-focused.
Time Extension: The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest is currently slated for 2025 on Steam. Can you be any more precise on the actual release date yet?
Silverman: Yeah, it's difficult because of all the porting and we have to go through Xbox, PlayStation, Sony, GOG, Itch, Epic Games, Steam. All these other services and portals. That takes a long time to set up. All the different things like Lot check to make sure it works for those platforms and achievement-specific things. You need testing for each one. That does take a while. I would say a solid six months of work for the team.
Then there's getting in all the slots and stuff and then having all the marketing lines so they all come out at the same time. Especially if we're partnering with a physical partner like we do with Limited Run Games, Strictly Limited Games, and Premium Edition Games. You know, we're like, 'Hey, can we get all this to line up at the right time?' So we have to put a random date, like 2025, and then kind of hone in on it.
So it does take some time. It's definitely 2025. We're assuming the middle of the year. But you never know. So just in case we have to push it a little back or even bring it out sooner, we try and give a more generic date until it's about several months out.
The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest is slated to come to Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC next year. We'll keep you posted as more information becomes available.