Well, it's been hell of a couple of days. To coincide with the launch of the Godzilla Vs. Kong movie, on the 31st March RGCD & The Pirates of Zanzibar released the much-anticipated MONSTRO GIGANTO for the Commodore 64. With only 70 GMOD2 PCBs left in stock here at RGCD HQ, I tentitively opened up sales with an initial batch of 50 copies - and within hours, all of those had sold. With an order of 100 more PCBs already placed with Individual Computers, I decided to re-open sales again as a pre-order for a second batch (with a shipping estimate for the end of April), and here we are, two days later on the verge of selling out again. This makes Monstro Giganto one of our fastest selling and most popular games to date!
I already had a head start on building the physical packages (before even opening sales I had 50 flashed and assembled cartridges), but of course there's more to shipping out an order than just that. So far I've put together 100 internal packs (manuals, stickers, badges etc. in polythene bag), assembled 50 boxed games and physically shipped 25 orders before running out of bubble wrap and packing peanuts. It was areally sunny day yesterday (for a change) so I moved the entire operation out into the garden - I didn't want to waste the opportunity for sun and fresh air by being cooped up inside my cramped office - but I do wonder what the neighbours must have thought with the patio covered by a mix of game packaging, cartridges, packing materials and about three loads of family laundry!
I hope to ship out another 25 copies early next week, and then the rest as soon as my incoming GMOD2 shipment arrives. I'll be keeping the pre-orders open after the second batch sells out, but please note that there will be a significant delay before these arrive at their final destinations!
Anyway, enough talk about logistics - here's the game launch blurb!
Brought into existence through human misadventure, four gigantic beasts have emerged to duke it out toe-to-toe in an epic brawl across the continents!
Take control of the monster of your choice and battle against the AI or another player in this furiously-paced PESTCII party-puncher! Who will be hailed as the King of Monstros in the MONSTRO GIGANTO hall of fame?!
Developed by Antonio Savona, Lobo and Aldo Chiummo of The Pirates of Zanzibar, MONSTRO GIGANTO is a one or two player brawler of epic sized proportions! Featuring relentless arcade style gameplay, huge and highly animated player characters, 101% PETSCII graphics, over 250 words of digitised speech (your Commodore 64 has never been this chatty!), a killer sound track, on-cartridge high score saving, unlockables and full PAL/NTSC compatibility, MONSTRO GIGANTO is a game worth fighting over!
MONSTRO GIGANTO is an RGCD Production. The cartridge version of the game is presented in a custom RGCD banded three-part cardboard box with a glossy outer sleeve. The cover art was illustrated by Lobo and the game comes complete with a professionally printed 20-page A6 manual, vinyl RGCD and MONSTRO GIGANTO stickers, a 4-piece badge set, post-cards and a 170gsm matt-finished A3 poster. The GMOD2 PCB is housed in RGCD branded black cartridge shell with a 3D domed label.
MONSTRO GIGANTO was programmed to run exclusively from cartridge, as it continuously streams data from the ROM during play. For this reason, a D64/Disk version is not available. Instead, a downloadable .CRT is available in both GMOD2 and EasyFlash format with every purchase to use via emulation or on real hardware devices such as the Ultimate 1541-II. Please check that your hardware is compatible with these formats! (Note that a stand-alone digital download of the game will be available to buy soon).
Finally, and this is VERY IMPORTANT. MONSTRO GIGANTO will sound DREADFUL if played on an Ultimate64 without a real SID Chip. I'm sure the Ultimate's emulation will be improved in time, but for now, it just doesn't cut it. It does however sound great on both the MEGA65 and even TheC64!
The All-Important Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment