Cue that sparkly little xylophone ditty we all know and love, because Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is set to release on Tuesday, September 10, 2024.
While at PAX West 2024, we got the chance to go hands-on with the retro 2D platformer’s demo, one of just a handful of co-op games we were able to try in the expo hall.
Adventures in Gameland was set up at the Limited Run Games booth — which also brought playable demos for Tomba! Special Edition, Clock Tower: Rewind, Earthion, and a full-motion video game called Ghosts — as it will have an NES cartridge release alongside modern console versions for PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PC.
After trying out the demo in split-screen co-op, we chatted with Tomas Guinan, lead developer on Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland and co-founder of The MIX Games.
Guinan said that working with Nickelodeon and Paramount to create this “neo-modern” licensed Rugrats game was a no-brainer for the team. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a Rugrats video game. There hasn’t been one since the Game Boy Advance. That was 20 years ago at this point,” he said, and we all shared a horrified laugh as the alarm bells of mortality sounded in our ears, “which, I mean, makes me feel old. But it’s really cool to be able to go back. The show started in 1991, and other cartoons from then had NES games. Rugrats never had one. So, it’s almost like a time machine thing — give it its chance to shine.”
Playing Adventures in Gameland: Demo impressions
With a short level inside Tommy’s house (“Babies in Gameland”), the PAX West demo acclimated you to the game’s controls: mainly jumping, crawling, lifting items or your fellow co-op player, and butt-slamming toy enemies.
It then set you loose in a longer level (“Sand in My Diapie”). There, starting in a backyard sandbox, you dig down to an underground desert filled with dangers like cacti and toy snakes and scorpions.
Here, Guinan teased some deep cuts and fun nods that fans of Rugrats can expect throughout the game, noting how the demo’s desert level brought in some ancient Egypt imagery and callbacks to the Rugrats Passover special.
“We tried to do the property service, because it was a show that we grew up watching. And we had to go back and think, what were some of the best moments that we could remember when putting together the boss fights — what are some of those sort of nightmarish, scary characters that were in the early seasons of the show? And even just throwing some little Easter eggs in the background here and there, especially in the HD mode where you have more space,” Guinan said.
You select your character at the start from a lineup of four babies, Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil, and each one has their own special abilities. In our short time playing the demo on the show floor, it was a bit hard to see the subtle differences in how each of the characters played. They each had different stats for their jump and lift capabilities; we appreciated Chuckie’s extra bit of leg kick with his maxed-out jump skill, a la Luigi in Super Mario Bros. 2, and the slight Princess Peach floatiness of Lil’s jump, thanks to her dress. But we’re hoping the difference between the babies will become a bit more apparent when we get the chance to spend more time in the game outside the chaos of the PAX show floor.
We opted to play together — maybe to our detriment, as one of us is not well-versed in platformers. We hit Game Over twice in our approximately 20 minutes of play time... but not just because of my lack of expertise. It's a decently challenging game: not punishingly so, but enough that it’s very reminiscent of the era it emulates, requiring some persistence as you get familiar with the level and its patterns. For our varying levels of expertise, we found it helpful that the remaining babies essentially serve as extra lives, and that you can also share your health (represented by a milk bottle) with each other. But even that’s not a freebie. You’re drawing from one player’s health to revive the other, so it comes with a risk-reward of its own.
One of the most interesting features of the game is that you can toggle between that classic NES pixel art style or a crisper HD version that beautifully recreates the look of the animated series we all remember.
“Even though we did the 8-bit version first, we always had in mind that there was going to be this upscaled version,” Guinan told us. “So, we wanted to make sure that everything felt modern and felt smooth, even when you're playing in 8-bit, so you could have this game that was made with modern sensibilities using the retro tech, and then using the modern tech, it wouldn't feel out of place.”
Despite its retro roots, Rugrats never felt stiff or awkward to control like many old licensed games are known to play. It's snappy and responsive and feels somewhere right between a retro and modern platformer in a way that feels like a magic trick.
Referring back to the Super Mario Bros. 2 comparison, the gameplay gave us flashbacks on more than one occasion with that similar floaty platforming feel and its familiar pick-up-and-throw and digging mechanics.
Whenever you jump between the HD and 8-bit art styles, it feels right either way. We also loved that you can switch between the modern or 8-bit music for the cohesive retro or modern experience.
All in all, it's a brilliant recreation of the kind of platformer we simply don't see in our world anymore, and we can't wait to see the full release on September 10.
For those not picking this title up Day 1, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is set to be free on the Epic Games Store for one week shortly after its release, from September 12 - 19.
More Video Games Are Good PAX West coverage is coming soon! Check out more from the expo hall, including our demo impressions and game developer interviews.
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