Even though it is rooted in the past, Pixel Ripped 1978 is pushing the series forward by letting players explore more with its new first-person segments. Whereas previous entries typically locked players to playing a game within a game, Pixel Ripped 1978 goes one step further, and developer Arvore has released a short video documentary talking about what this means for this title.
Pixel Ripped 1978 lets players dive into Atari classics
CEO Ricardo Justus said that Arvore wanted to do something different in Pixel Ripped 1978 while also retaining what players liked about Pixel Ripped 1989 and Pixel Ripped 1995, the developer’s two previous VR retro homages.
“We knew from the start that we wanted to keep it true to the spirit of the previous games but also sort of reinvent the formula,” said Justus. “Something that we noticed that people engaging really strongly with in the previous Pixel Ripped games were these moments where you’re looking through the eyes of the character Dot. But in 1989 and 1995, you couldn’t actually move around and explore that 3D world. We said we have to do it in this game.”
Associate principle 3D artist Marcus Penna stated that it was something the team tried to do earlier. Creative and game director Ana Ribeiro had spoken about this before in a previous interview and noted that the team cut the feature in Pixel Ripped 1995. Game designer Isaias Junior said it was still difficult this time around, but the team tends to “always choose the hardest path.”
Justus wrapped up the short video by reiterating how he met serendipitously met representatives from Atari at the Game Developers Conference and asked if they’d like to see the game paying tribute to their company. The meeting ended up changing the game, as the company then wanted to publish the VR title instead of just licensing some of its IPs.
