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Recombobulator Games founder talks passion project Space Boat

After spending decades in the AAA gaming space, Luis Alonso is going in a different direction.

Ozzie Mejia

January 29, 2024 3:00 PM

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After spending years in the AAA gaming space, Luis Alonso decided to try and take a different route. He opted to take his 20 years of experience and try his hand at indie gaming, forming Recombobulator Games. The studio's first official game is Space Boat, a space-faring voyage that takes players through an intergalactic mystery with some colorful characters. To learn more about what to expect, we recently spoke with Alonso about the team's efforts.

Alonso takes us through the origins of Space Boat's world, including their Muppet-like (but, as Alonso explains, not exactly Muppets to avoid copyright issues) cast of characters. The story of Space Boat has players taking on the role of Inspector Domino, a detective cat seeking to find a criminal shapeshifter currently at large aboard the space boat. The shapeshifter could be anywhere and anyone, so players will have to do their best to put together any clues they find in order to uncover this larcenous fiend.

Alonso talks about the current Space Boat demo, the wild racing portion of the game, character design, the struggle in searching for a publisher, the trouble with humor, and more. There's no release window for Space Boat, but there's a demo available on Steam. For more interviews like this, be sure to subscribe to Shacknews and Shacknews Interviews on YouTube.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?