Toronto is never featured in video games — this indie dev desires to alter that

You won’t understand it, however many video games are made in Toronto. On the AAA aspect, you’ve gotten such heavy hitters because the Ubisoft Toronto co-developed Star Wars Outlaws and Behaviour Interactive’s Useless by Daylight, whereas locally-made indie gems embrace Drinkbox’s Guacamelee! and Mighty Yell’s The Large Con. And but, we seldom see the Canadian metropolis really depicted in video games.

There are some examples of this, like Visai Video games’ Venba, which focuses on an Indo-Canadian mom, or Ubisoft Montreal’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Recreation, which follows the titular Toronto musician’s battle towards his girlfriend’s seven evil exes. However on the entire, Toronto itself is sorely underrepresented in gaming.

That’s what makes Retroronto so notable. Hailing from Toronto animator and recreation developer Sean Browning, it’s an arcade-style life simulator for PC set in a pixellated recreation of the town. It builds on a surprisingly prolific profession for the younger creator, who went to George Brown for recreation artwork and animation following an internship at a now-defunct Fb recreation studio known as Social Recreation Universe. He’s since had stints in VFX, animation, e-learning, and even Q&A at Ubisoft.

“My historical past has all the time been just a little far and wide, and I’m type of now on this indie recreation dev chapter of my life,” says Browning.

It’s a chapter that started in earnest in 2017 throughout his post-grad when he made a recreation known as Tram-Panic primarily based on the TTC. Round that point, the Toronto band Anyway Gang was engaged on its track “Large Night time,” and, after coming throughout Tram-Panic, tapped Browning to make retro-inspired overworld artwork of the town for the accompanying music video. From there, Browning thought it might be enjoyable to construct on what he’d completed for “Large Night time” in a full recreation.

“It simply grew to become this interest venture that I used to be simply type of enjoying round for enjoyable just a little bit later into the pandemic,” he says. However ultimately, he was laid off from his job as a full-time animator, main him to noticeably think about recreation improvement. With the encouragement of fellow Torontonian Jordan Sparks, a recreation developer who co-runs the charitable Enjoying With Posters initiative, Browning started actively growing Retroronto in 2024 underneath the title Starspray Studios after securing Ontario Creates funding.

As he set to work, he stored occupied with the shortage of illustration for Toronto itself in video games.

“Once I did analysis on different metropolis sims or life sims and such, it’s simple sufficient to only make a really generic metropolis, however cities are stuffed with character and tales and historical past — stuff that’s price speaking about,” he says. “And I feel lots of video games that happen in cities, particularly in North America, are typically, ‘It’s New York, however not,’ or LA, or no matter else. [But] Toronto is rarely a centrepiece locale in these video games.”

He notes that Canada’s little illustration in video games normally comes within the background, just like the opening of Swedish developer Frictional’s horror recreation Soma being set in Toronto or American studio Obsidian’s South Park: The Stick of Fact having a degree primarily based on the Nice White North. Maybe essentially the most outstanding instance of this comes from Ubisoft Montreal’s aforementioned Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Recreation. In that case, no less than, it was an precise Canadian developer making a recreation that was quintessentially about Toronto, however even then, it was drawing from Canadian Bryan Lee O’Malley’s fashionable graphic novels and Edgar Wright’s movie adaptation.

Browning says he was impressed by Scott Pilgrim however needed to take extra of an academic strategy. “I don’t suppose lots of video games try this, the place you get to study a metropolis. There’s no ‘digital tourism,’ if you’ll, about that,” he says.

“And so one in all my advertising buzzwords there may be, ‘Let’s make this little recreation that’s set in Toronto, however doesn’t simply have or not it’s a setting and imply nothing and simply be this huge empty area you could simply exist in. Perhaps we will study extra about it.’ And I really feel like there’s one thing there, particularly for [that] underrepresentation in Canadian video games. Let’s signify these cities!”

After all, that illustration manifests in numerous methods, particularly given Toronto’s multiculturalism, and it’s one thing Browning hopes to seize in Retroronto.

“I like to inform individuals about Toronto, in fact, but additionally about metropolis residing on the whole. I discuss to lots of people who’ve come to Toronto for education and even to only begin contemporary, to make a brand new life for themselves. And I feel there’s one thing actually inspiring that Toronto can type of give that. Perhaps it’s ‘the Canadian Dream,’ if you’ll. And I really feel like that’s price making an attempt to make a recreation round.”

That’s the place the life sim components come into play. As a newcomer to Toronto, you’ll need to get a job and handle your funds whereas exploring the town and turning into associates with its residents. The extra you play, the extra you’ll unlock higher jobs and different areas to find.

“Let’s speak about youthful individuals which might be making an attempt to return right here and make a mark for themselves and attempt to get by and develop right here. Even doing analysis in regards to the metropolis, particularly within the setting I’m making an attempt to set it in, just like the mid-2000s and such — the town was going by way of its personal adjustments. Even now, it nonetheless is,” says Browning of this premise. “There’s a theme occurring right here that I really feel like I can actually grasp onto. And so it’s actually a mixture of these items — of the town rising and other people rising with it, and the way that’s affecting individuals.”

All through all of this, although, Browning nonetheless refers back to the recreation a “cautious love letter” to Toronto, as he’s taking care to not depict the town as some utopian metropolis. He says it was essential to him to discover points like costly housing and excessive ranges of site visitors.

“I don’t need to make some recreation that lauds Toronto because the beacon of ‘all the pieces is superior.’ I feel there’s already that stereotype that Torontonians suppose they’re the centre of the universe.’ I actually need to work towards that stereotype,” he says. “It’s one thing that I feel will add lots of character. It has its flaws. It has its issues. And I’m working to essentially attempt to add that, but additionally add the icing on the cake as effectively with regard to what’s actually nice about Toronto, however these are the issues that Toronto faces — [back] then in addition to now.”

Clearly, Browning is working to seize the soul of Toronto, however in fact, there will even be loads of recognizable landmarks and different bodily staples. As you play, you’ll be capable to experience by way of the downtown core on TTC, coming throughout the likes of the CN Tower and Rogers Centre, Metropolis Corridor, St. James Cathedral, the OCAD buildings, Artwork Gallery of Ontario, and Moss Park Armoury. Some areas, just like the Eaton Centre, at present solely have exteriors, however he says he’d love so as to add the flexibility to enter the long-lasting mall.

These places will likely be on the centre of quests from NPCs who will ask you to assist them discover particular elements of the town, and finishing these will reward you with descriptions about every of them. As an illustration, he says the sport will clarify the distinction between the previous and new metropolis halls. However he additionally notes that improvement remains to be fluid and there are different issues he’s contemplating together with.

“There was a shirtless dude known as Zanta. I actually simply realized about this dude, I’d by no means seen him in particular person. Persons are all the time asking, ‘Are you going to have Olivia Chow? Are you going to have Rob Ford?’ And all these different characters. And I’m like, ‘Man, I’d like to!’” he says. “Even within the 2000s, in that rubbish strike and all that stuff, that was the beginning of [Ford’s] rise. I realized round that point, Trump was making an attempt to construct Trump Tower. That might be an attention-grabbing angle of this antagonistic actual property developer coming in as a part of this group of individuals making an attempt to develop these condos and all these items within the metropolis.”

However in fact, Starspray is a tiny nascent studio, and so Browning can’t embrace all of this. Certainly, a vital a part of recreation improvement is managing scope, particularly as an indie studio, and he credit fellow builders at native trade meetups for serving to him determine all of that out.

“There’s so many alternatives and issues I may do to reference Toronto and all the pieces else and I’m simply so busy making an attempt to make this life sim portion work! In order that’s nonetheless one thing I’m engaged on — characters and tiny little landmarks,” he says. “I’m looking for the massive kinds of references and as soon as I maintain growing, ‘right here’s the tiny ones you could find between the cracks,’ and that’s been rather a lot enjoyable to determine.”

All in all, Browning says Retroronto presents a chance to play a novel function within the huge and ever-evolving Canadian gaming area.

“A lot artwork and funky stuff comes from Canada. It’s solely a matter of time now that it’s bled by way of the place individuals are actually making an attempt to make video games which might be from or set in Canada,” he says. “And I simply need to be part of that motion. It’s one thing that I may be actually happy with as a recreation developer right here.”

Retroronto doesn’t but have a launch date, however you possibly can wishlist the sport on Steam. A brief demo can also be obtainable on itch.io.

Picture credit score: Starspray Studios