De 'Rétro Bowl’ Vers 'Objectif rétro’ – Comment New Star Games est revenu à ses racines
With these thoughts in mind, we were able to ask the founder of New Star Games, Simon Read, some questions on all things Retro Goal. We covered a range of topics, including the video game inspiration behind the series, the challenges of bringing a mobile game to Switch, and what could still be in store for the studio. Enjoy!
La vie de Nintendo: We had a great time with Retro Bowl on Switch. What was it about that game that made you want to make the leap to console?
Simon Read, New Star Games founder: The success of Retro Bowl on mobile was a huge surprise but one feature that many players asked for was gamepad controls. After implementing Bluetooth controller support it made sense to look towards a console release. Bien sûr, the revered Bol Tecmo on NES was a huge inspiration for Retro Bowl so it felt right to target a Nintendo console.
Being a British company, how does it feel to come back to this version of football after spending time invested in the American variety with Retro Bowl? Was there anything you learned from Bowl that informed Goal’s design in some way?
Absolutely. We hit upon a balance of gameplay and team management in Retro Bowl that really worked. So the plan was to translate that from gridiron to football.
I’m constantly looking to old sports games for inspiration
The simplicity and accessibility of Retro Bowl is perhaps its greatest strength. In what ways have you streamlined the beautiful game in Retro Goal?
In a similar way to Retro Bowl, and this goes right back to my early New Star Soccer games, you only take control of the attacking phases of the game. Of course defending is a major part of any sport but is generally less fun to play, so the idea was to skip through those defensive sequences as quickly as possible, relying on your team building and management skills to determine defensive outcomes.
There is a step up in tactics from New Star Soccer to the likes of Retro Goal. Do you think arcade-style football games could have done with more tactics back in the ‘90s? What made you want to layer those elements in here?
I’m constantly looking to old sports games for inspiration and whilst gameplay might still hold up today there is often a distinct lack of depth. So yes, for all my games I like to have simple, engaging gameplay but with tactical and role-playing elements not typically associated with sports games.
The mobile version makes great use of touchscreen controls. What were the challenges of bringing this to Switch, and did the Joy-Cons prove to be beneficial in their addition?
I definitely prefer to play with Joy-Cons now and right from the off it was clear that physical controls improved the game — it was just a matter of tweaking and iterating the feel. We also wanted to ensure that the game could be played on the NES controllers for Switch, so figuring out the best control scheme was a challenge, but those are the sorts of puzzles I enjoy about game design. You can still use the touchscreen controls too.
Graphically there were a lot of ’90s games that wowed you with screenshots but turned out to play terribly!
Aside from adding in Joy-Con support, are there any other changes that you were keen to make for the Switch?
One thing that stood out when playing with Joy-Cons was that the gameplay action was too slow and needed speeding up to feel more like an arcade football game. One thing we’ve done is include an option for people to choose their preferred game speed. Also having multiple buttons allowed us to use individual buttons for low/high passes, knocking the ball forwards, et ainsi de suite. The controls have certainly been designed with the Switch in mind, it’s not just a quick and simple port over from mobile.
You say that the game is ‘inspired by the most beloved football games of the 16-bit era,’ what games were you playing in this era and were there any titles in particular that you looked at when developing Retro Goal?
One of my favourite football games (actually from the 8-bit era!) était Emlyn Hughes International Soccer. For its time it had an incredible range of passing which I wanted to recapture in Retro Goal. Graphically there were a lot of ’90s games that wowed you with screenshots but turned out to play terribly! Toujours, des jeux comme Man Utd Europe et Kick Off 3: European Challenge did provide inspiration for the art style at least.
Now that you have three Switch ports under your belt, are there any other of your previous games that you’d like to see come to the console?
I don’t think any of our other existing games will come to Switch but our future games certainly will be. Next year should be very exciting.
Cette interview a été légèrement modifiée pour plus de clarté.
Thanks to Simon for taking the time to talk to us about Retro Goal. You can pick up the game soon on Switch.