Artist Showcase: Hipster City Cycle (Interview)

Philadelphia is a city rich with different cultures, some very distinct and well known, more-so than others. When it comes to the Philly bike culture, I’d say I became aware of it 2-3 years ago. This was a little before the “fixed gear” craze began and everyone you knew was riding kamikaze style between cars and Septa buses on Broad Street. But when it comes to the culture in general, it’s not often that you find a collective of artistic individuals put the spotlight onto it in such an original and creative way. Hipster City Cycle is taking it back to my own personal original obsession from my youth and mixing it in a modern pop-culture style, highly addictive kick ass retro side-scrolling video games. Luckily, I got to sit down with Alex and the Hipster City Cycle gang to tell us a bit more about the project. Click the tab below to read the full interview. Enjoy!

1. Okay so I’m going to use the 1st question as sort of an introduction. What is your name, a little about yourself and help to describe what Hipster City Cycle is exactly?

• My name is Alex Alsup. I’m 25, I’m from Jersey. This is the second iPhone game I’ve worked on — I worked on another in Hanoi, Vietnam while I was living there in 2009.. When I was heading back from Vietnam at the end of 2009, Michael Highland and I, who are old friends from high school, started talking about this bicycle racing game set in Philadelphia that he was working on and he asked me to come onboard. I also have a tattoo of the Wu Tang “W” on my right shoulder. These are all the important things about me.

• Hipster City Cycle is an homage to Philadelphia. The original three guys that started work on the game – Michael Highland, Kevin Jenkins, and Keith McKnight – all went to college there while I came in later. Someone told me that, recently, Philly was named the least fashionable city in America, so I guess this is how we’re celebrating/refuting that achievement because I imagine there was some stiff competition from Boston for that distinction.

2. Who are the main people behind Hipster City Cycle and what is each member’s role in the current video game project? How did this collective idea come about?

• I was in Vietnam at the game’s inception, but my understanding is that Michael and Kevin wanted to do a tap-to-run style game with a runner headed at a finish line. Something really simple. I think they saw that a lot of those kinds of games were around and thought, well, we’re in Philly, there are lots of bikes, let’s go with that. The idea to set the game in Philly was the first thought and I think the biking and biking mechanics came later. It was an interesting move and makes it a really cool game to work with because most iPhone games are just released to the world. The idea of marketing and really focusing a game on a single market is novel, I think, as far as an iPhone game goes. Also it gives us the possibility, if we’re fortunate enough and the game does well enough, to take this sucker to other hipstery cities. Like Houston.

• The main characters:

• Michael Highland (as described by Alex Alsup): Michael is the William MacArthur of HCC. Y’know, he’s on the phone with Washington chewing out the president, he’s in a bunker calling in artillery strikes, and, when it gets hairy, he comes out to the front line strapped with a bandolier, carrying a fifty-cal, and smeared in pig blood and lays down covering fire.

• Alex Alsup: My calendar and responsibilities are like Rick Ross’: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dcit5V3HxJs/Sf59z6f2S0I/AAAAAAAAAHQ/PNGuOsVIZY0/s1600/image064.jpg

• Keith Mcnight: Keith painstakingly draws the graphics, including the characters, backgrounds, vehicles, and menus. Keith can do amazing things with pixels and once he started showing us the characters and backdrops that would later become the actual game, we got really excited about how heavily we could tie the game experience to the Philly experience. After a few more months of development, reaching a point where we could actually see things coming together to a playable/entertaining experience, Michael brought in Bucky/Patrick to do some chiptune soundtracks for the levels as well as the sound effects. His tracks fit perfectly with the retro feel we were after. Al was also brought into the group to brainstorm back story and bring our newfound hero Binky McKee as well as help us do some marketing. He’s done a pretty amazing job in connecting us to people and businesses throughout the city.

• Kevin Jenkins: Michael and I began batting around ideas for a game over two years ago. Ideas ranged from absurdity — a karate chop game that would produce humorous sounds ranked by chop ferocity — to more classic things like a sprinting race game. We decided to go with the sprinting game which later became a biking game after about a year of learning how to create and design a game for the iphone. I think we just thought hipsters and bikes went well together and since everyone’s got an opinion about hipsters, yet no one claims to be one, they are a great talking point between game and player. It added the possibility for humor and storyline, something critical to make the game more than just a button mashing experience. Michael brought Keith (McKnight) in to work on the art for the game around this time and we had the idea of actually making the game represent Philly.

3. In our first year of AnmlHse, we used to do “Campaign Ads” where we “ANMLized” friends and supporters who sent in their photos as a contest. It worked out very well marketing-wise, and we see that you guys have a similar and definitely more rad contest with your “Pixelizations”. How many have you done so far and what are some of the more famous Pixelizations that you guys have done?

• I think we’re close to 500 pixelizations at this point. Zombie Michael Jackson and Hipster Adolf Hitler make appearances although neither were available for their photos in person. We also have philly dj legend, DJ Lee Jones, coming into pixelization soon and the Deadringer himself, RJD2. Tony Luke and Tony Luke’s will soon be immortalized as pixels. We also recently met with the Eagles at their NovaCare practice facility and pixelized Eagle-man Dave Spadaro. And if Will Smith and/or Bill Cosby are reading this, you’d look better in pixels and my number is 609-731-2890.

4. By the way is there any chance we can see a limited edition PandaReemy Pixelization for the video game? I’m just sayin lmao

• As Homer Simpson’s German doppelganger says before attempting to choke Homer, “Zat arranged can be.”

5. How has Philadelphia, the Hipster scene and the bike culture inspired this video game?

• Keith: Philadelphia is a great city with a lot of character, so capturing even a little part of it goes a long way to give the game an interesting setting. Is there really anything inspiring about hipsters? Biking is pretty much the best way to get around Philadelphia (even if good bike lanes aren’t everywhere just yet), and it’s hard not to notice how many bikes there are and how seriously some people take it. Some people just bike to get around, other people are really into using their bikes as fashion accessories, and other people are into cycling as a sport. When you put biking and Philadelphia together, there’s a lot of material to work with, but we chose to focus on what best lent itself to a cartoony presentation.

6. Can you tell us some of the most famous or recognizable landmarks/hot spots/icons of Philadelphia that we will see in the finished product?

• Keith: Rittenhouse Park, the Green Line Cafe, Pat’s and Geno’s, and 30th Street Station, to name a few. A pretty big handful of things that will look familiar but with different names!

7. Do you see yourselves creating this game for multiple cities such as Brooklyn/Williamsburg, or are you going to keep this franchise Philly based?

• Keith: Yeah, we were thinking about New York. Here’s the exclusive: it’s going to be called HCC2: Special Hipsters Unit. It’s going to be less about biking and more about solving crimes though. Just kidding. We’ve definitely got some more ideas up our sleeves for the future, but we’re focused on Philadelphia at the moment.

8. What were some of the biggest challenges when dealing with the creation of this game and also the development of it too?

• Keith: Drawing everything takes a really long time. It’s also difficult to decide what to include and what to leave out. Sometimes it all seems necessary to really represent an area.

• Kevin: For me, I think the biggest obstacles have been learning the basics of game programming without any real formal training and keeping the whole project reasonably organized and functional. I’ve never really worked on a project of this scale with other people before. Managing resources and code (even with just one other coder) can be a lot more challenging and more thought has to go into the structure and organization of it all.

9. When are you aiming to have this project released and how are people going to be able to purchase/play this game?

• The game should be released around the end of 2010 or the very beginning of 2011. It will be available in the App Store for Apple devices only at first (iPhone, iPod, iPad) but we’re hoping to have it transferred over for Droid, as well, shortly after release.

10. Is there any chance we will be seeing young teenage Hipsters to-be’s playing this in arcades around Philadelphia? I hear it’s not that difficult to create a homemade arcade.

• Keith: If they want it bad enough, we’re not going to stop them from jailbreaking their phones and connecting them to a TV or whatever.

11. Hipster City Cycle aside, what are some of your plans for the future? Any new projects, collabs, job offerings drop on the table thus far?

• There were discussions with the Philly PD for a minute about creating a Hipster City Cycle Vice Squad but those fell through due to irreconcilable differences.

12. What can we expect your next move to be in 2011 and beyond?

• Keith: Release the game, make millions of dollars, and buy a new bike.

I’d like to thank Alex, Michael and the whole Hipster City Cycle crew for taking their time out for this interview. I hope you guys enjoyed it. To keep yourself updated with this game you can check out their website HipsterCityCycle and also go to their YouTube channel and watch how the game works. Hipster City Cycle will be available for download sometime in the next 2-3 months for iPhones and iPads alike. Thanks for reading felow anmls!