Old School Gamer Magazine chats with the team behind Slayin’ 2 to find out what went into making the indie gem on the Nintendo Switch.
Old School Gamer Magazine: How was this game born?
Tom “Reggie” Schreiber (Owner, Pixel Licker LLC):After the first Slayin was updated, I wanted to work on something different. I spent the next 2 years making a game called Treasure Buster and then worked another 2 years with FDG Entertainment on a game that was ultimately cancelled. By that time (December 2016) I felt like enough time had passed where I could think about new ideas for a Slayin sequel. I wanted to play with the idea of the “2” in the title and think of things that could be “double” of something. This is where the 2 plane idea came from. And since so many people had requested multiplayer on mobile, I felt like I needed to add coop to the sequel. I also planned on expanding the inputs from one button to two, but ultimately, it ended up being three. I also wanted to push the game to the next era of gaming by setting the look and feel in the early 90’s era arcades I grew up in. In general, I would like every Slayin title to progress like this, where each game moves into a later era of gaming. But since mobile is a tricky platform to add input complexity, I also decided that it would be better as a PC or console game where players could use a physical controller.
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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