| Vblank Entertainment | |
| Industry: | Video games |
| Founder: | Brian Provinciano |
Vblank Entertainment is a Vancouver based independent video game developer founded by Brian Provinciano. Provinciano programs, produces, designs, and leads art for Vblank's games.[1] The studio has released the titles Retro City Rampage (2012) and its sequel (2019).[2] The studio's games are self published.
Around 2002, in Provinciano's spare time, he constructed his own Nintendo Entertainment System development kit and began remaking Grand Theft Auto III, with 8-bit sprite graphics, under the codename Grand Theftendo. At the 2011 Game Developers Conference, he revealed how he built software tools to help him overcome the limitations of Nintendo Entertainment System hardware, before shifting development to the PC. In 2007, the project shifted and would become Vblank's 2012 release Retro City Rampage.[3] Vblank's titles are known to satirize and pay homage to retro titles they take inspiration from.[4]
Retro City Rampage was released in 2012 for Windows and seventh-generation consoles.[5] It received mixed to positive reviews from critics.[6] As of December 2014, the game had sold around 400,000 copies across all platforms. Retro City Rampage has since been ported to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo 3DS.[7]
In 2015, Vblank announced a sequel to Retro City Rampage titled, which was released in 2019.[8] Shakedown: Hawaii was ported to legacy consoles such as Wii, WiiU, and PlayStation 3. The Wii version was a limited run of 3,000 limited copies.[9] A physical 3DS version was released in 2023.[10]
| Year | Title | Platforms |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Retro City Rampage | Xbox 360, Windows, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii |
| 2019 | PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 3, Windows, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo WiiU, Nintendo 3DS | |