If you've ever been lucky enough to visit the historic UK city of York, then there's a good chance you've visited the excellent Sore Thumb Retro Games, an independent store packed to the rafters with video games, anime products, vintage toys and much, much more.
As a regular visitor to the city, I've been popping in multiple times each year and on a recent trip, store owner Lee Cunningham mentioned that Sore Thumb is getting its very own video game—and if that wasn't cool enough, it's been coded by the 13-year-old David Carter.
The game charts a journey from your character's home to the Sore Thumb store, and mixes a variety of styles, including top-down RPG, side-scrolling platformer and even a scrolling racing game. The objective is to gather as much cash as possible during the trip to spend when you get to the shop, but there are hazards on each level which cause your available money to drop.
Keen to learn a bit more about how this project came to be, we asked Carter some questions.
Time Extension: What inspired you to create the Sore Thumb video game?
David Carter: My dad had been messing around with some device for backing up Pokémon saves before their batteries died and had put the Sore Thumb logo onto a cart just for amusement's sake, really, to show to Lee. When we went in, Lee mentioned he’d always wanted a game based on the store, so I decided to have a go at making one.
Time Extension: What tools did you use to create it, and how long did it take?
David Carter: Mainly Game Boy Studio; most of what I needed I could do in that. It's not too far off stuff I’ve used at school. My dad had to do some fiddling with plugins to try and get certain bits to work. Other than that, it was pretty easy to follow what to do by reading up or watching YouTube. I think it probably took about six months of weekends to do, when I wasn’t busy fishing!
Time Extension: What was the hardest thing to get right with this game's development?
David Carter: Almost all of it! I had massive problems getting the Game Boy Printer to work (at one point, it would have printed out a till receipt with your score from your trip to the store!), so I gave up on that. The scoreboard was a lot harder than I feel it should’ve been, as I was trying to make the levels long enough without having memory/sprite budget issues.
Time Extension: What kind of input did Sore Thumb have in the game's design and development?
David Carter: Loads! Lee really had a clear idea of what he wanted, right down to the game of Frogger to get into the store. It's just a shame I couldn’t get the beat 'em up or Tetris (Lee loading the van for a show) levels in. He really wanted the game to involve the challenge to become a "big hitter", which is in. If you get a big enough score, you get the Big Hitter ending [a reference to the championship belt Sore Thumb customers get to wear when they spend enough money].
Time Extension: What's the feedback been like so far? Was all of the effort worth it?
David Carter: The guys in the store have played and fed back on loads of different versions and have always been really impressed, but they have also given tips and good opinions. We’ve had the game playable at a few Sore Thumb Gaming Nights, where loads of people have played it, and we even had a high-score contest with a prize! I think people think it's cute that a retro store has its own retro game that pays tribute to other retro games!
Time Extension: What plans do you have for future games?
David Carter: None at the moment. I’m about to start my GCSE years at school, and most of my free time will go to studying (so my Dad tells me).
You can visit Sore Thumb's website here. If you're in York, be sure to drop by.