Justin Arnold

Retronator

Daily pixel art and gaming news
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Justin Arnold
Retropolis
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      1. Retronator, Monday, March 28, 2022

        As a kid I went bonkers over any game with a built-in editor, from designing a pinball table in Macadam Bumper in the 80s to making tracks in Stunts (4D Sports Driving) in the 90s. I already knew how to program by the time Clickteam’s amazing tools started coming out (Klik & Play, Click and Create, The Games Factory, Multimedia Fusion), so my path took a different route, but I always kept an excited eye on editors such as Adventure Game Studio and Game Maker.

        RPG in a Box is definitely a software I’d have my hands all over in my younger days—and even as an old-schooler fond of things like PICO-8, the voxel/pixel aesthetic definitely tickles my curiosity. The tool is a passion project of solo developer Justin Arnold, who released the initial version in 2015. He’s been able to work on it full-time since 2017, so the list of features keeps on growing.

        image

        So what’s in the box? A voxel editor, sprite editor, map editor, visual scripting, dialogue editor, sound FX generator, a bunch of camera modes … Yup, everything you need to make your first (and 2nd and 3rd) game with cozy tools.

        Check the trailer below to see it in practice, along a diverse set of community projects. A demo is available on both Steam and Itch, whereas the full version will be a $25 investment into your (or your kids’) game development future!

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      Retronator
      Daily pixel art and gaming news
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      Editor: Matej Jan
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      Message fromthe editor

      Hello everyone, I am Matej Jan a.k.a. Retro. Welcome to Retronator—my blog and game development studio.

      I started Retronator in 2007 with the goal of making video games focused on creativity. Along the way I started writing about art and gaming, featuring artists and projects that caught my attention. Nowadays this mostly includes pixel art, with occasional diversions into voxels, low-poly 3D, low-res digital painting, and basically anything that makes me feel like a kid again (text adventures, chiptune, LEGO …).

      I'm also very nostalgic about 20th century games that didn't neglect their educational potential. I expected titles like Sim Ant, Caesar II, and Sim City to continue into the future, expanding their power to teach us something along the way. Games such as Kerbal Space Program and ECO continue to carry the torch, but are far in between in the current gaming landscape. Expect Retronator to cover more games like that in the future.

      Finally, on these pages I document my own journey as an illustrator and game developer. I'm working on an adventure game for learning how to draw called Pixel Art Academy. This newspaper lives in the game world and I'll make that quite obvious soon. Thanks to backers of the game and supporters on Patreon I can create this content full-time. Thank you for making this possible!

      It's been 10 years since I started this journey and there is no doubt the next 10 will be absolutely amazing. Stick around and I hope you will enjoy the ride.

      Happy pixeling,
      —Retro

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