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AUSTIN, Texas – Hobo With a Shotgun, the outrageously bloody movie spawned by a gritty Grindhouse trailer, is about to blast its way onto iOS devices in the form of a retro-style game with a unique back story.
The trailer and screenshots above, debuting exclusively on Wired.com, offer a first look at the wicked side-scrolling game coming soon to iPad, iPhone and iPad Touch. It packs plenty of shotgun justice administered by the homeless guy played by Rutger Hauer in director Jason Eisener's movie.
[eventbug id="sxsw2011"]"You are the grisly hobo with a shotgun," said Tim League, founder of Austin's genre-film giant the Alamo Drafthouse, a driving force behind the project. "When you run out of ammo, you just have to bludgeon people with the shotgun."
It's all done up in 8-bit, NES-style graphics that give the game a vibrant old-school vibe. But the project could point the way toward future fertile collaborations between indie filmmakers and game developers. The Hobo With a Shotgun game resulted from a partnership of Eisener, indie gamemakers Perfect Dork Studios and Powerhouse Animation Studios, and Mondo – Alamo's collectible-art boutique.
The seeds were planted at last year's Fantastic Fest, an annual horror, sci-fi and action film festival put on here by Alamo, with the addition of an indie game-development segment called Fantastic Arcade.
"We wanted to see the indie game world and the indie film world fused together," said Alamo's Tim League in a phone interview with Wired.com. The Hobo With a Shotgun game is the first such project to lock and load.
The collaboration, which finds all parties pitching in to shoulder development costs and sharing profit or loss, could point the way toward future partnerships between genre filmmakers and independent game developers. For example, Nacho Vigalondo, director of 2008 sci-fi movie Timecrimes, is working on a game with developers, thanks to connections made at Fantastic Fest, League said.
The Hobo With a Shotgun game seems like a perfect project to test the concept. Director Eisener said he and writer John Davies looked to vintage videogames when dreaming up the hobo's brutal world.
"Growing up playing videogames in the '80s with my friends has attributed to a lot of my artistic tastes," Eisener said in a press release. "Games like Double Dragon 2, River City Ransom and Final Fight all had worlds we wanted to explore. From their character designs, pumping soundtracks and color palettes, you can find all those inspirations in our film."
The movie itself spun out of a fake trailer created by Eisener and colleagues. It won director Robert Rodriguez's SXSW trailer contest for Grindhouse and was subsequently screened with the exploitation-flick double feature.
The game-development process was steered by Eisener, with many characters lifted from the movie, including a pair of villainous brothers in bumper cars who make for a crazy boss battle, according to League.
'It's really not a fair fight.'"It takes a lot of firepower to knock 'em out, and if you get cornered in the wrong part of the bumper car arena, you're doomed," League said. "It's really not a fair fight."
So, has Alamo, which has tapped a winning combination for genre films, found the silver bullet for creating a killer movie game – a prize that has long eluded big studios, which usually partner with giant gamemakers to churn out boring games with big price tags?
League, who helped out with the Hobo With a Shotgun beta testing, said the game is fun, difficult enough to inspire repeat plays, and just as over the top as the movie.
"Everybody dies a bloody death," he says, "but it's a 16-bit, old-school death, so nobody's going to have any nightmares over it."
The $2.99 Hobo With a Shotgun game is available for download now. The movie hits video-on-demand April 1 and will be released theatrically in May. League said as the release approaches, new levels will be added to the game. He promised that some of the deadliest villains will be saved for those free updates.
Let's hope all the blocky gore doesn't sully any of Steve Jobs' pristine gadgets.
Hobo With a Shotgun screens at the South by Southwest panel film festival this year. Eisener, Mondo creative director Justin Ishmael, Magnolia's Andrew McGraime, GameSalad's Mark Chuberka, Badass Digest's Moises Chiullan, Perfect Dork Studios' Billy Garretsen and Powerhouse Animation Studios' Brad Graeber will discuss the videogame project during a SXSW panel Monday, titled "Hobo With a Shotgun, The Game: A Case Study."
(Correction: Story has been updated to properly describe NES as an 8-bit videogame console and to note that the Hobo With a Shotgun game is now available in iTunes.)
See Also:- Bloody Hobo With a Shotgun Poster Is Mondo's 'Most Graphic' Ever
