Old School Gamer Magazine chats with Jon Price – Co-founder and Designer of the new Nintendo Switch dual-stick shooter, “Aperion Cyberstorm.†A combination of Metroid and Geometry Wars, it’s a unique experience inspired by some of the greatest games of all-time.
Old School Gamer Magazine: How was this game born?
Jon Price: Aperion Cyberstorm started as a prototype made by our programmer, Matt, who one day came into the office with it in tow. He’d nailed the core loop, and off we went.
It started in the XNA framework, but when that was no longer supported, we weighed up our options and chose to move the project to Unity. During that time, we worked out what we wanted to do with it, and that’s where Campaign mode came from. Versus was there from the start. Onslaught actually took a little longer, as it was going to be a trick-shot mode i.e. destroy seven enemies in this configuration in a certain time frame, but we felt it didn’t match to the strengths of Aperion Cyberstorm, which was flashy neon and bullets, however, you wanted to go about it.
Old School Gamer Magazine: What makes this game special?
Price: Players can combine their abilities to do more damage. Combining spiral bullets and rockets to create spiraling rockets that cover the map, for instance. It supports up to five players in all modes, comes with a wealth of customization options and unlocks!
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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