Last year, I formed a video game company called Space Whale Studios with three fellow Drexel students/grads and my good friend Mike Worth. The goal of our studio is to create small-scale, retro-inspired games with modern twists that have enough depth to appease both casual and hardcore gamers alike. Last night, we finished an alpha version of our first title, Return All Robots!.

RAR! is an action-puzzle game where the player takes the role of a hapless intern working at a corporate-funded laboratory. The game begins when The Intern arrives at his lab only to find it in chaos with robots and animals running amok, fires burning, pools of acid everywhere, etc. He is given a single directive by the lab’s corporate headmasters: retrieve all company-owned machinery and ensure their safety. You can read more about our game concept, look at screenshots and watch a video at the Microsoft DreamBuildPlay contest website.

For the alpha version of the game, only a handful of musical tracks were needed, which you can listen to and download below. The game’s aesthetic is a mix between 50s and 80s; the story is lighthearted with darkly humorous moments. In writing the music (with the help of Mike Worth for the title theme) the idea was to capture that unusual blend of influences and keep the player entertaining and engrossed.

Return All Robots! – Title Screen

Return All Robots! – Main Lab Hub

Return All Robots! – Alpha Level