Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘Trumpocalypse IV’

Review Fix chats with Zé Moreira, developer at Gorlami! Games about their new game “Trumpocalypse IV,” breaking down the team’s goals, developmental process, and future.

Review Fix: Why Trump?

Zé Moreira: Well, who else could we choose? With the start of the election, although the name Trump caught some attention, we did not expect him to turn out to be that comic and tragic character that was formed. We had the idea more or less in June of that year. At that point, Trump did not get out of the media with his absurdities and we thought it would be a good idea to explore that side of the election.

Review Fix: What games inspired this one?

Moreira: At first the idea was to make a game like Space Invaders, but ended up getting a little annoying. So we changed and we decided to explore Trump’s inner demons and we kept some of the mechanics of space invaders.

Review Fix: Let’s talk about the art. What inspired that?

Moreira: We love pixel art. We think it’s a form of art that are really growing in mobile and it fit perfect for the humor that we tried to make in the game.

Review Fix: What has development been like?

Moreira: It was complicated. As I said above, we changed the idea of the game while we were making it. A lot of assets of art could be used, but the code, well…we have to remake a great part of it. But in the end, it was worth it. the game came just as we expected to be.

Review Fix: With all the competition on the mobile market and in the indies now, how difficult was it for you guys to try and make something that stood out?

Moreira: We bet a lot in the theme of the game. Trump was (and still are) on every social network. So, with that, we start to invest in advertising in Facebook to reach more and more users.

Review Fix: Bottom line, why must someone play this game?

Moreira: Because the game is fun, hard and most of all…you can defeat Trump. Come on. What more do you need?

Review Fix: How do you want this game to be remembered?

Moreira: We want the players to think something like: “Holly shit…this game is so hard…but I’m having fun…but I want to smash my cell phone in the wall right now…fuck.”

Review Fix: What are your goals for this game?

Moreira: Our main goal was to have fun while making the game. Gorlami!, our game studio, started in march of this year. So we tried to make a project that was complex enough but that didn’t drain all our energies. We really made the game that we wanted to play. And so we did.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Moreira: We have the main goal of make new games in a maximum of 45 days. Now we are working on two simultaneous games, but recently we launched “Hippo – The Chondriac Adventures,” a game about a Hippo that is a hypochondriac.

Review Fix: Anything else you want to say?

Moreira: Come meet Gorlami! and our projects. Our goal is to have fun and make you have fun as well. And try to defeat Trump, as in the real life is super difficult, almost impossible, you will hate yourself, but in the end, you will laugh (or not).

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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