''Renga'' is a

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of chara ...

video game developed and published by British studio wallFour. Designed for

movie theaters A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

for up to one hundred players, players are given

laser pointers A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...

and are tasked with cooperatively building and defending a space ship. It was showcased at 2012's

Indiecade IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent games. IndieCade is known as "the video game industry's Sundance."Fritz, Ben"IndieCade, the video game industry's Sundance" Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2009, accessed July 21, 2011 ...

, where it won the Developers Choice Award.

Gameplay

''Renga'' is a "theatrical co-op" game. It is designed to be played in a

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

with up to one hundred players, with each player holding a

laser pointer A laser pointer or laser pen is a small handheld device with a power source (usually a battery) and a laser diode emitting a very narrow coherent low-powered laser beam of visible light, intended to be used to highlight something of interest by ...

. Players must pilot a space ship by hitting one of four arrows, which causes the ship to move. At the same time, players must also defend the ship from objects such as

pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...

s and

hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Ancient Greek, Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple polygon, simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexa ...

s. Defeating a pentagon, for example, requires five players to hit the five points of the shape simultaneously in order to destroy it. Destroying the hexagons earns the players blocks, which can be used to build engines or silos, the latter of which can capture more blocks.

Development and release

''Renga'' was created by wallFour, former video game industry employees Adam Russell, previously of

Lionhead Studios Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson (British game designer), Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the ''Black & White (series), Bl ...

and John Sear, previously of Codemasters. The inspiration for the game came from works of ProjectorGames and

Graffiti Research Lab Graffiti Research Lab is an art project founded by Evan Roth and James Powderly James Powderly (born 1976) is an artist, designer and engineer whose work has focused on creating tools for graffiti artists and political activists, designing ro ...

's ''L.A.S.E.R. Tag''. ''Renga'' was selected as one of thirty-six finalists at

in 2012. It was later featured at Indiecade East in 2013 at the

Museum of the Moving Image The Museum of the Moving Image is a media museum located in a former building of the historic Astoria Studios (now Kaufman Astoria Studios), in the Astoria neighborhood in Queens, New York City. The museum originally opened in 1988 as the Amer ...

. It was also shown at the

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutori ...

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

, New York Film Festival and the GameCity Festival.

Reception

At 2012's Indiecade, ''Renga'' was awarded the Developers Choice Award. It also received an honorable mention for the Nuovo Award at 2013's

Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...

. Luke Larsen from Paste placed it first on his list of "Exciting Games from IndieCade 2012", saying that "it was the one game that had us most convinced of the communal power of video games." John Walker from

Rock, Paper, Shotgun ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' (also rendered ''Rock, Paper, Shotgun''; short ''RPS'') is a UK-based website for reporting on video games, primarily for PC. Originally launched on 13 July 2007 as an independent site, ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' was acquir ...

considered the concept of the game to be "splendid".

References

{{reflist, 30em Indie games IndieCade winners 2012 video games Space flight simulator games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Multiplayer video games