UrbX Warriors Interview – New Retro-Style Arcade Adventure Kickstarter

James: Hello, I’m James Woodcock from pixelrefresh.com. I’m here at ZAPP! Live 2025 to look at one of the new Spectrum Next games that’s going to be on Kickstarter soon called UrbX Warriors. Tony Warriner and Stoo Cambridge are going to talk us through what their new game has on offer. So, let’s go and have a chat with them now.

Tony: I’m Tony Wariner and I was a co-founder of Revolution Software. That would be Broken Sword, Beneath a Steel Sky, but I suppose I’ve been writing games since the 80s, since the 8-bit days.

Stoo: I’m Stoo Cambridge, known for my work at Sensible Software—known for Cannon Fodder, Sensible World of Soccer, Sensible Golf. Like Tony, I’ve been working in games since the late 80s and early 90s.

UrbX Warriors is an arcade game that we kind of stumbled into developing. Originally, we were going to do a very small game for the Spectrum Next, and we’ve now created this IP that we didn’t expect to. So, it’s an arcade adventure game with typical elements—collecting coins, picking up keys, unlocking doors, discovering treasure. It’s really created a pathway for us to develop content, which we didn’t really expect. We started it and thought, we can make this as big as we can. So, we’ve got plans to take it to new levels—first with the Spectrum Next, then we’ll release it on other formats later.

Tony: We were at a Crash Live show and there was lots of Spectrum Next stuff going on. I’d bought one and was keen to have a go at programming on it. The idea was that if we started on the Spectrum, with it being such a constrained platform, the game would stay small and not suffer from feature creep. But it has crept a lot and become a much more ambitious project. It’s really pushing the Spectrum as far as it will go. It’s not a small game, but not absolutely huge either. It’s still a Spectrum game at heart, but much bigger than anything ever seen before on a Spectrum.

Stoo: We started off trying to create something simple. We’ve drawn inspiration from a lot of classic arcade games and tried to do something on the Spectrum Next that hasn’t been done before. With the graphics, I worked within the hardware’s constraints but tried to push it to make something that really stands out. I think we’ve kind of achieved that. A lot of good feedback from people who have seen it so far.

We started trying to create something very simple. We’ve been compared to lots of other games, but we’ve drawn inspiration from a lot of the classics and just adapted elements we liked in classic arcade games. We’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done before on the Spectrum Next—working within the hardware to make something that doesn’t look like a typical Next game. I took that approach with the graphics—trying to work within the machine’s restraints while pushing it to make something that stands out. I think we’ve kind of achieved that. We’ve had a lot of good feedback so far.

You mentioned feature creep—we’ve been quite restrained. We’ve added a lot of stuff we weren’t originally planning to, but we’ve kept our heads and only done what we can manage. We’re really pleased with what we’ve done.

Tony: It was going to be level-based—“here’s a level, here’s another level”—but it’s grown beyond that into a world, with a story running through it, characterisation, and puzzles. None of those things were originally envisioned, but they’re all things we wanted to see in the game. So it’s evolved into that.

Stoo: We’ve created two characters, Ramona and Alejandro, who have an interest in ancient relics, ancient history, and archaeology. They’re based in South America—Peru and Bolivia. They were on an urban exploration expedition, not necessarily looking for lost treasure, just exploring lost relics, and they stumbled upon an entrance to a lost city. They didn’t know it was a lost city at the time—they thought it was just another ancient relic site. They go through a hole and discover this whole underground complex which leads to a whole new world. That’s the premise of the game. It grounds us in today’s reality with places like Pumapunku, Tiwanaku in Bolivia, but then we take it into the supernatural.

One of the biggest things with the Next is the palette. Although it’s more capable than the original Spectrum, you’ve only got 512 colours. That’s fine for bright, colourful graphics, but if you want subtlety and finesse, you’ve got to be careful. For example, soft shadows aren’t really possible—it’s either medium or dark. So you have to create an art style that works within that and still looks really good and arcadey.

I don’t generally do stippling a lot in my artwork, because normally you don’t need to. But for this game, I’ve used stippling as part of the actual style—not just for shading, but to give texture. So for rocks, I’ve added more detail with stippling instead of just using a different colour shade. Same for the rest of the graphics. I’ve used techniques I’ve built up over the years to put everything I’ve learned into this game. When I started the graphics, I wanted to make something that would look like an arcade game—something like you’d expect to see on a Neo Geo. That’s been my mindset throughout: think Neo Geo, think 90s arcade machines. So far, the feedback has been really positive. Some people didn’t even know it was on the Next—they thought it was running on something like an Amiga 1200. That’s a big compliment because it means I’ve done my job.

Tony: It’s like the same constraints as the 80s, but in a much better working environment. Modern development allows plugins, asset libraries and so on. This doesn’t. Everything has to be handcrafted and tuned until it shines. There’s no other way.

Stoo: They can expect a game that feels like an arcade game, but with underlying adventure elements. It’s sort of RPG-ish, but not quite. There are interactions here and there, but the aim is to keep it pick-up-and-play. Every element has been crafted to be playable. If you pick up a gun, you only have so much ammunition. If you go all guns blazing, you might run out before you reach an area where you need it. So there’s strategy involved. Same with the crowbar—you use it and you get fatigued. You can only use it for so long before it recharges. That stops players from just clobbering everything and forces them to think.

Tony: We’ve been working on it about a year, on and off. It started at a show like this. Stoo and I were sat next to each other on a talk panel and we started talking about what we liked and what we were working on. Then we thought, maybe we should work together. Over the course of another year, we casually formed the plan for UrbX Warriors. One day we just said, we’ve got to start. So we did.

Stoo: We both share the same view and philosophy on game development and the way the industry is. It was literally down to saying, “Maybe we should just do a game together.” I don’t do a lot of game development these days—just the odd sprite or background—but I thought, let’s go for it. I’m all or nothing. If I start something, I see it through to the end. We’ve got the experience and expertise…

Tony: …about 40 years each in the industry. That’s a lot of experience. You don’t just forget that. You’ve got to use it for something. And this is what we’re using it for.

Stoo: A lot of what we’re doing is stuff we learned 20 or 30 years ago. The principles are the same. The tools are better today, but the process is the same. We’ve had a vision of what we wanted to achieve, and we’re going through the process.

Tony: It’s just the two of us—no big studio. That limits what we can do in a given time, but it makes the project authentic.

Stoo: It’s a retro game in 2025. That’s the way to look at it…

Tony: …A mix of old and new.

It launches first on Spectrum Next, then exactly the same version will run on PC—Windows, Mac, and Linux. You don’t need a Spectrum Next to play it. The game will be the same. After that, we’ll look at other platforms—maybe PlayStation, Dreamcast, definitely Amiga. Probably Switch and Steam too.

Stoo: We’ve got a roadmap. Every version we release will be enhanced. The graphics on this version won’t be the same on the Amiga. The Amiga version will be enhanced. The Dreamcast version too. Graphics will be higher quality, with more colours, better animation frames—just making it look better. Playing to the strengths of each platform.

Edited by James Woodcock