After 6 long years of work, Viral Reload EX has been finished. Starting from a small prototype made in 2020 while we were all stuck inside and going crazy, it has evolved into the biggest project I (the programmer/pixel artist) have ever taken on. The final game contains 9 levels, 9 bosses, 19 cutscenes (plus an intro cutscene/animation), an Arcade Mode, Story Mode and Boss Rush Mode, as well as some fun stuff to unlock in the Rec Room. Before I announce the release date, I wanted to take a moment to reflect a bit on the development of the game, and to thank the people who helped make it a reality.
I could not have made a game at this scale without the help of everyone else who has been working on it with me. The lead artist on the game, Curley, designed most of the characters and drew over 100 pieces of art for the cutscenes and promotional material. The composer for the game, floopy, wrote 19 songs for the soundtrack. That's not to mention getting to work with Gangle who voices the announcer, all of the people who helped playtest the game, and the amazing folks from the shmup community who have helped immensely over the years with everything from debugging to design advice. Of course I would be remiss not to mention my parents who have supported me my whole life, and my fiancé who was a fan of Viral Reload and its characters before anyone else knew they existed.
As you may have gathered, making Viral Reload EX has not been easy. About 2 years ago I became very ill with a mystery illness that put me in the hospital and nearly killed me. It took 6 months and every test they could possibly run to diagnose the problem, and when all was said and done I had spent over a year dealing with it. Floopy developed a heart issue and was eventually barred from drinking caffeine altogether, and Curley even had their own ongoing mystery medical issues. Suffice it to say, there was a point during development when I became concerned the game would never see the light of day because everyone involved in the project was going to die before we could finish it.
Thankfully, everyone survived, and we've put together a game that we are all extraordinarily proud to release. It was especially surreal to receive the game’s rating from the ESRB and the other international ratings boards. If you had told me 6 years ago that I would be releasing a game on a Nintendo console (thanks to RAWRLAB Games and Flynn’s Arcade Publishing), I would have never believed you. I could have never imagined all of the opportunities that have been afforded to me because of this one game, nor the friendships that I've formed along the way.
With all that said, I'm happy to announce that Viral Reload EX is finally releasing on