The Rugrats Are Getting a (New) Video Game, But It's Not for Kids

Fortunately, the developers understand nostalgic millennials might want to play this game with their kids.

Rugrats was a weird show but an indelible part of my childhood. The squiggly lines. Those distinct voices. Reptar! I know Rugrats is still around—there’s an reboot that includes some of the same voices for the children—but the version that I remember finished airing in…2004? Wait, can that be that right? It was still in its original run while I was in high school? But that’s how most children’s TV shows are: endless. 

(Side note: This is the creative argument for Bluey coming to an end this season.)

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is aimed at people, like me, who grew up alongside Rugrats and games. There was an era where anything moderately popular on TV or the big screen was adapted into a game—and often poorly. The point wasn’t to make a good video game, the point was to capitalize on popularity. It was insulting, because it treated games like action figures. (No disrespect to action figures, of course.)

But there were diamonds in the rough. Licensed games that actually kicked ass, especially if you looked a few years before Rugrats was airing on television.

“I think there is a kind of tainted reputation of license games, but back in the 8-bit era there were actually a lot of really good ones,” said Tomas Guinan, co-founder of The MIX Games, who is publishing Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland later this year. “Many licensed games that came out then are classics and that's kind of what we wanted to harken back to. Games like DuckTales and Ninja Turtles were quality titles that were developed by AAA companies like Capcom and Konami. That's the feeling that we really were trying to capture with this game.”

You need only glance at a screen shot of Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland to see what it’s going for. It’s not being shy. It’s completely riffing on classic games like DuckTales.

“As nostalgic millennials ourselves,” said Guinan, “we wanted to make the kind of game that we would want to play. The kind of game that would have been released when we were kids. The game is aimed at both millennial parents and children, and that is a big part of what we wanted to do. We're targeting the same crowd who would play a Super Mario Bros. game.”

There have been plenty of Rugrats video games, though it missed the 8-bit boat by a number of years. Rugrats: Search for Reptar came out in 1998 for the PlayStation. Guinan told me he hasn’t played any of the other video games based on the show. Most of them are 3D, though a Game Boy incarnation is one of the rare 2D games.

The MIX came out of Guinan’s experience working on another licensed game, a beat ‘em up set in Kevin Smith’s “View Askewniverse,” Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl. The game’s designer, Justin Woodward, wanted an 8-bit version of the brawler, and that version on its own became a success. Woodward and Guinan ended up partnering up to form The MIX Games, which specifically focuses on 8-bit takes on licenses.

Which might make you wonder—hey, doesn’t this game also have fancy art, too? 

You can even flip through the two modes in the options menu. It’s neat.

When I played a few minutes of Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland at PAX East, the developers said the game was initially conceived solely as featuring 8-bit art, before they started imagining what it might look like with a more modern aesthetic, something that might more closely match what the actual cartoon episodes look like.

It’s the reverse of the usual process, where 8-bit is treated as the marketing gimmick.

Neat!

Also, 8-bit games were notoriously hard. This is the era of cheat codes, and before difficulty levels. Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland follows that tradition, but not obnoxiously so. It’s a game where you’re going to get hit, and you’re going to die. It might star children, but it’s not pitched at them. That said, the developers are aware that millennial parents indulging in a little nostalgia hit might want to play Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland with their kids, and the game does feature options for that.

“There's nothing that excludes children from playing this game at all,” said Guinan. “There have been a lot of kids playing the demo at the various events where we've showcased it, and they've had a great time, especially when the parents get involved. The co-op play really helps with this, and there is a mode where you can play with infinite lives, taking away the frustration of a ‘game over’ screen from players who may need a little help.

It brings to mind my interview with the developers of Disney Illusion Island, last year’s platformer that was explicitly pitched at families but played with similar design ideas:

“We [the developers] are those platform fans from the 90s, we loved World of Illusion,” said Grand-Scrutton, referencing 1992’s classic Disney platformer for the Sega Genesis. “But we've got kids, we've got nieces and nephews, we want to make stuff that we can play with them. It's such a cliched thing to say that once you and your friends start having kids, your world changes, but it does.”

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland arrives later this year. There’s a demo on Steam now.

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Also:

• I know Rugrats is still a thing, but is it actually a thing with kids? I’d be curious if anyone in the Crossplay community has children who are into the show now.

• Did you know there was a spin-off series where the kids are grown up? I’m not shocked the “reboot” ditched that idea and went back to the talking kids again.

• Not only was there a spin-off show where they were grown up, but it’s actually one of the (many) video games they made based on the show over the years. Wild.