Quick Look: EX: Retro/Grade

Great music, cool visuals, and an interesting new take on rhythm games. Definitely checking this out when it releases.

That's a really interesting and unique concept for a rhythm game.  

@kustud: The reason I wish these videos with developers weren't called Quick Looks. I like the honesty of QLs, having a developer there just makes them pull punches. 

Looks good! I'll have to get this.

I like the concept.  Looks like a decent DLC game

Wait, so you can reverse the reverse time....?

@Peewi said:

If this version is really early, what do they call the two year old demo that's on Steam?

Oh wow, I'm not so sure what to think about that.

Cool concept.

Hmm...

I hope they sell the OST at some point.

I'd imagine that barring DLC or updates that replayability might be a small issue,but it looks pretty interesting.Also,golf scoring.

Huh, I thought this game was already a thing. But it does look a lot different from the version I saw ... what, a couple of years ago? I suppose it's good that they're taking their time making it as good as they can. It is a pretty novel concept that's worth exploring. And that's really all I feel like saying about the game...

But it DOES look really pretty now! It was lacking that, before!

Edit: Yeah, I'm glad I watched this video. It was less than impressive before, but now it actually looks and sounds really, really pretty. Good job, guys, good job.

This game looks pretty sick. You can count on my $10-$15!

This is a really dumb concept for a rhythm game. I like it!

Y-Wings, X-Wings, and maybe some TIE? Nice.

Looks interesting.

Looks fuckin' rad, except for the worst set of names for difficulties that I've ever seen. It's like the internet got drunk and threw up all over the difficulty select screen. Whatever happened to very easy/easy/medium/hard/very hard?

I liked that they went all out with the concept and the game keeps track of your "low" score for each level.

Really enjoying the music. I remember hearing about this on Idle Thumbs a while back. My only question is: How do they address the fact that Level 1 will be the hardest level? I assume they'll just ignore that because it looks so cool.

Innovation in my videogames, I guess the rapture's coming after all.

Really enjoying the music. I remember hearing about this on Idle Thumbs a while back. My only question is: How do they address the fact that Level 1 will be the hardest level? I assume they'll just ignore that because it looks so cool.

looks dull, but then again the only rhythm games I liked were the DDR games.

I wasn't sure until I heard the music during the boss fight. Then I knew this game looks pretty darn interesting.

This looks good. I want to play it.

What an interesting concept. I hope this goes somewhere good, as small studio projects go this one's up there pretty high. Though I do share the slight distaste for "Newb" and "L33t" as difficulty settings. I wouldn't hold it against the title but I kind of hope that we as a people manage to move past using those in the future.

Hi, I'm Matt from 24 Caret Games. Thank you for your interest in Retro/Grade and kind words.  I figured I'd respond to a few of the questions posted here.

• There was (and still is) a demo up on Steam. This is what we entered in the 2009 Independent Games Festival. It was more of a proof of concept than an actual game. We've pretty much redone everything in the game since in order to create something really good. Since our team is small, that's why it's taken so long from when the Steam demo went up.
• Level 10 is the easiest and level 1 is the hardest. I know this goes against our premise but creating a fun game is more important.
• I'm sorry to hear that many people don't like the difficulty names. The intent was a parody of people who try to have "cool" difficulty names. Instead of hardcore, we have mediumcore, etc. It seems as though that's not coming across. We'll put together a poll or something on our facebook page in the future, so we can see if the majority of people think we are guilty of what we are trying to poke fun at. Please vote in that if you can't stand the game.
• We are interested in making the soundtrack available, but we don't have the details worked out for that.
  

Does he mean to imply that the Wii and 360 couldn't handle buildings being blown up in the background?  Hah...  
The game looks good, but this guy is kind of a dick.  Though I should have gathered that when I saw the "L33T" difficulty setting.

Matt from 24 Caret Games again. The 360 can definitely handle Retro/Grade. We never meant to imply otherwise. The Wii and many handhelds cannot handle the game as it is currently programmed. They do not support a programmable graphics pipeline. We use a large number of effects that rely on that.

We could we make a version of the game for Wii. However, the graphical fidelity would be decreased a lot (as it is for most Wii ports), and it would require a significant amount of rework because the game technology is being designed for HD consoles. Sorry for the confusion.

Loving the music, gonna have to get the soundtrack for this.

Looks really neat, and the music is awesome

Really looking forward to playing this!

I remember trying to play the old-ass PC version that's up on Steam and enjoying it, but this looks like a huge visual overhaul. I'm looking forward to whenever this gets released.

The music is so soothing...

This is especially weird for me because my teacher from Full Sail is the artist on the game. He showed us the prototype during our texture class.

I love that you see the vapor trail the enemy beams left behind "before" they shoot at you in Level 9. Touches like that really make the game for me. Keep up the good work, guys. I'll definitely be getting this!

That looks really neat. I'm wondering how the game would play with a guitar instead  of the controller. 

Looks neat I guess but I don't see the point to show such a small game especially when it is still far away from being released. Bummer, most people will probably soon forget this even exists.

I spotted Inanimate Carbon Rod in the credits. Is there anything that rod can't do?

This looks neat. I want to see what the higher difficulties and later stages look like now.

I'm not one fro rhythm games but I gotta say I like the look and sound of this one. Defiantly gonna keep an eye on this one. 

Looks fun. 

no, thank you. instantly bored

Really love the concept, the music is really awesome the game looks kinda ok

Looks kind of like Bit Trip Beat meets Assassin's Creed & Prince of Persia. If I had a PS3, I'd buy it.

I have little to no interest in rhythm games, but I really love the look of this game.

One thing bothers me though--at the end of the game, isn't Rick Rocket going to have to beat the bad guy again?  Sure, he saved the Universe by preventing the various space/time continuum bad stuff, but isn't the Universe in peril again because of the bad dude from the beginning (or end) of the game?  Will a straight-up shoot'em up unlock after beating the rhythm section of the game?  That would be most righteous.