“I think level design is one of the most interesting things about ‘Ricochet’ and it’s something that I think a lot of ‘Breakout’ games do poorly.”
“Each level can be designed differently, they can be pictures of things or little puzzles,” Smith said. What ultimately was able to inspire Smith and the rest of his team was the opportunity for variety in level design with a “Breakout”-style game. “With Ricochet Xtreme, after a couple weeks’ work it was already fun to play.” “With the bigger projects, it took months before you knew if they were fun or not,” Smith said. In part, it was the fun of Ricochet Xtreme that let the team know that it was on to something by forsaking the mainstream market.
So when the team decided to flesh out the title, it had one major benefit working for it: It was already a blast.
That prototype of Ricochet Xtreme had become something of a sensation around the office, a way to kill time while not working on Zax. Smith and McAteer had spent a few months on the game before they got swept up in what Smith describes as the “death march” of trying to ship another product on time, leaving little room for side projects.īut true to its name, Ricochet Xtreme bounced back, this time at a time when Reflexive was trying to decide what game could be their opening salvo into the burgeoning casual market.Īs Smith recalls: “Somebody just said ‘What about that game James and Jeff were working on? Could we bring that in-house?'” “The ‘Breakout’ type game was the first to really work well and have new directions you could take it in,” Smith said. Unbeknownst to them at the time, they had struck gold. They moved on to another idea, influenced by Smith’s love for “Breakout” on the Atari 2600 and “Arkanoid” on the Apple IIGS. The duo soon found out though that there was little more to be done with the shooter classic’s formula. Their first effort was “Galaga”-based, with a plucky shrimp in the lead role, battling against underwater enemies.
Just for kicks, the two had decided to update a retro game.
While Reflexive had been grinding away on Zax and Away Team, Smith and artist Jeff McAteer had been spending their free time on more classical aspirations. They would turn away from the mainstream gaming market and set out on their own with Ricochet Xtreme. The company decided to make its own way, creating a product of their own vision, with their own timeline. Smith said that after years of living and dying by the whims of publishers, Reflexive had enough. But after plenty of work on the RPG, the massive publisher decided that it just wasn’t what they were looking for, and Reflexive was left to flounder.
While shopping Zax to other publishers, gaming giant Activision was quick to put the team to work in one of the world’s most popular franchises, creating Star Trek: Away Team, a mass market PC title.Īfter it shipped, Reflexive began work on a follow-up for Activision, a Star Trek role playing game. “Since we never had a contract, we owned all the assets, so we sold the game to another company.” “They cancelled our contract that we never had,” Smith said. Because of legal haggling, the team worked for months without a contract, while still being paid for their efforts by the toy company.Īfter working for around six months on the game, which would come to be known as Zax the Alien Hunter, Hasbro refocused their efforts away from external development, leaving Zax without a home. Using it as a calling card, they were able to nab a contract with toy manufacturer Hasbro. Their first game was a fast-paced shooter called Swarm. It would be a year before they would have an office of their own. There were just four people who made up the company at the start, setting up headquarters in the living room of one of the founders’ condos. “We just thought we could do better on our own than with the boneheaded management we were working for,” Smith said with a laugh. Smith, Reflexive lead programmer and co-founder, said that the genesis of his company is a story that has been repeated in the business world many times over. An unlikely road through the hardcore gaming world led them to create Ricochet Xtreme, an addictive brick-buster that would bring a classic idea into the casual games arena.
Reflexive Entertainment may have started out much like any small company, but that’s where the similarities end.