Retribution Express
Project type
Digital Gold master
Project date
Early 2026
Role
Team Lead,
Designer
Team size
6
Association
Team composition
2nd Year BA
2 Designers
2 Coders
2 Artists
(THE PRODUCT)
PLAYABLE RELEASE
Retribution Express is in the Pompey Probably Playable Pack by Port In The Storm!
The pack can be found here.
The current release of Retribution Express will be kept up to date with the pack download. While your there, do try out some of the other games made by teams for PITS as well!
Retribution Express is a small scale, fast paced, arcade game where your aim is simple: rampage through the train without mercy. With fights guaranteed and enemies ready to shoot on sight: evade enemy shots, fire on your opponents, control the train – all in the name of your retribution!
Wreak havoc through the train
With each departure of the train bringing a new composition of carriages, battle through an evolving set of levels en-route to taking over the locomotive. Expect resistance in each car though as the gang make use of the cargo and seating to defend their positions and try and stop you in your tracks. That leaves you with one choice: eliminate them all to progress.
Select your weapon of choice
Retribution can take multiple forms – as do the means by which you deliver it. Exchange range for getting up close and personal to deal heavy blows with your shotgun or keep your distance and fire your pistol to send off more precise rounds one at a time.
Perfect your execution
With each elimination adding to your combo multiplier and the clock ticking down, do you choose your shots or unleash a storm of bullets upon your foes? Improve your technique with each run to rack up the score as you perfect your means of revenge.
Enact an unceasing wave of retribution
When one set of grunts is not enough to quench your desire for revenge, hop aboard the next departure of the endless train to continue dishing out punishment for as long as you can. Let them know no bounds to your vengeance.
Eliminate The Boss
If you’re looking for the one to blame however, you’ll need to make it to the final car of the gang’s standard train. The Boss is the mastermind behind all operations and is due some comeuppance. Be warned, while his underlings won’t make it easy for you to reach him in the first place, he too is ready to pull out all the stops to end your run.
Localised for play in 4 languages
Retribution Express has been fully localised into English, Finnish, Swedish and Burmese (Myanmar). Gameplay itself is also language neutral so that everyone can dish out some retribution!
Key Features:
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22 Levels to wreak havoc through
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2 Game modes to perfect your score
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2 Weapon playstyles to master
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4 power-up types to sustain your rampage
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3 enemy types to eliminate
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1 boss unit for revenge
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Only one life to give per run
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Fully human drawn art from top to
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Short, replayable gameplay
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Arcade-style vibes
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Simple to pick up, difficult to master
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Localisation available for English, Finnish, Swedish and Burmese (Myanmar).
Development Discussion
Preproduction
With the publisher requirements significantly constraining the scope of potential projects but leaving freedom on creative direction, we knew that we had to be very critical in our ideation process. This is because the 15 weeks allocated for the project included new production considerations for us so we wanted to aim for something we felt secure about completing on schedule.
Having initially had an open feeler session with the whole team to review opinions on working into different genres and play styles (day 1), the design team took the feedback and created mini pitches for a small collection of ideas. Of these, the infinite train shooter carried the most favour and was selected for development.
Advancing into alpha development, a schedule for development and simple organisation of tasks with a MoSCoW analysis, shown in part in the images to the right.
Alpha development
Alpha development ended up having a number of challenges - namely a cases of illness which messed up the schedule not insignificantly. Fortunately, these were mostly resolved by being able to agree a delay to release by 2 weeks.
The main aim for alpha development was to try and get something testable and then playable as soon as possible. From the design side, this mainly involved level building and character / enemy tuning to get to a testable stage. In parallel with this, asset design work was also ongoing. At this stage, the technical requirements for the project were also published.
To reach version Alpha 1.0 and have a bare bones playable version, design work shifted balance toward implementing UI features and primitive weapon buffs. Asset design also continued in parallel to this work. The majority of work towards design compliance with the TRC was also conducted at this stage.
With how the design team's specialisms were split, part of my responsibilities also involved some coding work to provide basic functionalities as well as work on the technical design and documentation for the project while the asset design work was mainly worked on by the other designer on the team.
Beta Development
With some semblance of a 'playable' alpha (I use quotation marks because the build could be played but it wasn't the complete game we were aiming for), the focus changed from rapid implementation of content towards polishing the game. Admittedly there were a few supporting features we were still looking to add so we were not content complete, but we were very rapidly exceeding what we had set as our minimum viable product.
Beta development consequently had three simultaneous branches of development.
Firstly, work towards getting what we already had up to a standard we were happy with (basically polish): from a design perspective this focussed heavily on game balance through tuning weapons and level layouts.
Secondly, plugging in ready to implement requirements such as game translations (the writing had already been done and it was a matter of getting the correct information to display in the correct places).
Thirdly, implementation of desired supporting features. This was primarily used to introduce a level of variance into existing systems by adding a weapon selection and temporary buffs for the player to use throughout a run. On top of this, we also used some time to make a proper end level which has turned out to be my personal favourite to play in amongst its chaos!
Making it release viable
In the final stretch of the project, the design team took on most of the responsibilities of final polish, requirement checklist proofing and press kit work.
In game, this meant adding the transitional screens and last UI changes that ensured compliance with specifications and improved UX. Furthermore, refining the audio elements of the game helped add a bit of 'crunch' to the game feel.
Outside of the version build, this work involved recording and editing gameplay footage into both the gameplay trailer and marketing video. As part of this process, I have had to expand my understanding of both Audacity and Da Vinci Resolve as they have been my tools of choice so far but I am still learning how to make full use of the programs.
The results of this work can be seen in both the press kit above and in the current release of the game in the pack by Port In The Storm.