새 소식
Play as ninja cheerleaders in Ra Ra Boom, a co-op action game about fighting rogue AI
A
Alan Wen
"Gylee is actually named after my kids, Guy and Lee, and Guy was named after my Street Fighter main," he explains. "I went to the arcades to play these very competitive games, but when I got my ass kicked, I then went and played these co-op games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and that's where my friendships were formed. So I've always wanted to make a beat 'em up."
As demonstrated by the game's colorful hand-drawn visuals, poptastic soundtrack, and fully voiced characters, Ra Ra Boom is also inspired by Bergman's love for Saturday morning cartoons that combine a mixture of campiness and emotional storytelling. It's certainly got a wacky premise: Ra Ra Boom is set in a future where you're fighting a rogue AI that was originally created to solve climate change, but has interpreted that solution as “destroying all humans.” The decision to cast its heroes as space ninja high school cheerleaders is also down to Bergman coming up with the title first.
"I actually bought the RaRaBoom.com domain in 2008 just because I love the phonetics of the name," he says. "So it was fun trying to figure out, what does a ‘Ra Ra Boom’ look like? Cheerleaders and blowing things up, basically."
You choose from an all-female cast of heroines-in-training, either by yourself or with other players in local co-op. There's dual uzi-wielding Aris, tanky shield-bearing Vee, katana-slashing Ren, and sassy cyborg Saida. When playing solo, each character acts as a life, so that if you lose all your health to an enemy you can select another to take their place, whereas in co-op, each player will still get three lives as the same character.
You'll get to really understand the personalities of each character, each based in part on the women who have been inspirational in Bergman's life, conveyed through fully voiced dialogue as you play through each level. But you can also tailor their abilities to your preferred playstyle. By defeating robot enemies and completing optional “homework assignments,” you'll earn scrap, which you can use in between levels to unlock and upgrade abilities like a dash, dodge, and even air-dash.
"One of the early pillars that we had in our design was we wanted players to spec with a progression system," Bergman explains. "So they can spec into melee combat, or they can focus more on guns, because this is a shoot ‘em up as much as it is a beat ‘em up. I think that progression is really rewarding and really opens up the gameplay very quickly." Of course, this means you can also revisit earlier levels with upgrades that can help you get a better grade at the end.
Ra Ra Boom also differs from most arcade beat ‘em ups’ typical eight-way controls through its focus on lane-based combat. You'll notice your characters subtly snapping into these lanes on the ground, whether that's inside of your high school gym in outer space or in an abandoned theme park.
"One of the frustrations when we started working on this is that feeling of whiffing on a hit because you're not lined up precisely with an enemy, and so we wanted to solve that for you," Bergman explains. "In a lot of beat 'em ups you end up fighting the shadows more than the actual sprite. And then because we have ranged combat, how do I know if I'm on the left side of the screen that I'm going to hit my target on the right side of the screen? The lanes were a great way to visualize that."
There's a lot of personal inspirations from Bergman's life that have made it into Ra Ra Boom in various ways, like how each character is based on the many inspirational women in his life, or how the scrap resource was actually an idea from his kids.
"When I started writing it, my father-in-law at the time had passed away, so I was also grieving a lot—this game definitely has a lot to do with how friends can become your emotional support for grief," he explains. "I thought it was really important to tell that kind of real story but do it in a fun, campy way in a super accessible arcade-y game."
As Gylee's debut game, there's obviously hope it will be received well and warrant a sequel, which Bergman is already busy writing. "I really hope that the characters resonate with people, I want to see people cosplaying as the characters at PAX next year," he concludes. "It's a game about friendship, so I hope it creates friendships and I hope friends gather together to play it."
Ra Ra Boom releases right now on Epic Games Store.