Buck and The Cursed Cartridge hit the shelves on October 31, 2025, in a surprise shadow drop from ModRetro. Partnering with GameStop, the game stars the video game retailer’s somewhat obscure mascot as he gets sucked into the titular cursed cartridge and navigates his way across 6 worlds of nostalgic retro platforming mayhem. We were sent a copy of the game to play through and had a bunch of questions for the dev, playinstinct, after completing the game. Read on for our interview:
GB Studio Central: Can you tell us how Buck and The Cursed Cartridge got made?
playinstinct: A couple of well-ranking game jam entries got me in contact with Chris Beach, the creator of the legendary game Dragonyhm, who is now the head of publishing at ModRetro. Months later, I saw a post on social media stating that GameStop and ModRetro were working together to release a GameStop-exclusive color variant of the ModRetro Chromatic. More importantly, they were bringing back GameStop’s mascot, Buck, as a pre-order bonus charm. That got me thinking: wouldn’t it be awesome to have a Buck game to sell along with the Chromatic? So, I jumped into GB Studio, created a very basic prototype and messaged Chris about my idea and attached a short gameplay video.
Turns out that was the most perfect timing imaginable, as they had the same thought and were already discussing starting development of a Buck game. So they invited me to build what I already had into a full prototype. As a GameStop fan, I couldn’t pass up that offer.
The titular cursed cartridge
I did a lot of research on Buck, his lore, the brand identity of GameStop and the interests of their target audience. Based on that, I changed a couple of things around, expanded the prototype and created a pitch deck. Both ModRetro and GameStop liked the result, and I was given the green light to create the game.
GBSC: What was it like working with GameStop?
playinstinct: It’s been a great experience. I feel like our creative visions for the game were perfectly aligned. That made things very easy. Having Chris as the game’s executive producer made things even easier. He handled all of the communication with GameStop and everyone involved in the creation of the physical product. This allowed me to focus fully on developing the game.
To make sure we were all on the same page, Chris and I gathered all of my ideas in a Game Design Document that contained the entire game in written form, including the main plot, ability upgrades, setting and environmental mechanics of each world, mini games, bosses and a list of gaming tropes and memes we could reference in the game.
in this mini game.
Most details had already been discussed and agreed upon before the game’s development even started. Because of this, there was no need for GameStop to constantly supervise the game’s development. Essentially, they just let me do the cooking. They had a couple of great ideas along the way, like the addition of a certain character that I don’t want to spoil.
After the first world was finished, I sent over an early build of the game. About halfway through development, I created a three-minute progress reel showcasing highlights from each finished level. Of course, they reviewed the final game. I honestly can’t think of a single thing they wanted me to change. It still feels pretty unreal to me that they let me go wild with their mascot. I’m extremely grateful for the trust they placed in me.
GBSC: What approach did you take in designing the game world, along with its characters and moments?
playinstinct: I wanted Buck and the Cursed Cartridge to become a celebration of retro gaming. To do that, you can’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, you have to take the wheel, make it as wheel-shaped as possible and put it on a pedestal. That meant trying to include as many video game tropes, references, memes and inside jokes as possible.
There are way too many of those in the game to discuss all of them in detail. Just to give one example, a surprising number of platformers start with grassy, green levels. That’s a tradition I had to continue.
GBSC: Did you have a specific process or philosophy in the level design?
playinstinct: When it comes to the look of the levels, the game definitely draws a lot of inspiration from many different video game classics. That’s on purpose. I wanted the game’s visuals to feel immediately nostalgic. But the layout of the levels isn’t based on any other games – apart from nods to specific media in certain places. Rather, each level started with a “What if?” What if one level has the player explore an ancient pyramid? What if the player has to stack ice blocks to reach the exit? What if something chases after the player? What if a level is the shape of a snowflake? What if a level is completely dark? Having a central idea like this for each level automatically guides the level design quite a bit. I think this approach gave each level more character and made them more memorable than randomly placed platforms.
There are also many other aspects to level design, like rewarding exploration, (mis)guiding the player’s attention, or implementing alternative, shorter but more challenging ways to move through the levels for speedrunners to discover and exploit. Buck’s unlockable abilities also needed to be taken into consideration for the placement of platforms.
GBSC: How was using GB Studio? Did you use any plugins or custom engine code?
playinstinct: GB Studio is such an amazing piece of software. Apart from coding a few smaller games on my graphing calculator during boring classes at school, I didn’t have much experience in game development before getting into GB Studio. Still, everything felt immediately intuitive.
But what’s even more amazing than GB Studio itself is the community around it. It kind of feels as if all of the nicest and most helpful people in the world have gathered in a single place. There’s no gatekeeping. Everyone shares their knowledge, tricks and even plugins they create.
Buck and the Cursed Cartridge doesn’t use any custom engine code. I didn’t even have to think about getting into engine editing because the community has created and shared so many fantastic plugins that did exactly what I needed. In total, the game uses around a dozen different plugins.
GBSC: What was the most challenging part of the game to make?
playinstinct: I don’t want to downplay the difficulty of scripting or working around hardware limitations, but those are challenges that can be overcome. There is one problem, however, that no dev can solve on their own. After playing your own game over and over again while testing, you know it too well and get too good at it. That makes it tough to figure out which parts of the game might be too difficult or too easy without other people testing it.
Also, whenever you play your own game, you play it the way it’s intended to be played. But other players will always find ways you didn’t anticipate. If you want the game to be as polished as possible, you need QA testers. Without the amazing testers ModRetro had organized, the game wouldn’t be nearly as good.
GBSC: What’s next for you?
playinstinct: That’s a tough question. There are just too many things I would love to work on. I have basic prototypes for a 3D racing rhythm game, a third-person cover shooter, an open-world first-person sandbox RPG, an offline MMORPG and a monster raising RPG. Then there are a couple of former game jam entries that I should probably continue working on to turn into full releases.
Outside of game development, my wife is trying to convince me to send the songs I write to bands to try and get into the music industry as a metal composer. I also want to write a second book, publish a couple of card games, get back into designing shirts for my shops and then I still have my main job as a freelance video editor and marketing consultant. I really wish there were more hours in the day.
GBSC: Anything else you’d like to say?
playinstinct: I would like to say thanks. To GameStop for letting me borrow their mascot. To ModRetro for enabling the game in the first place through their contacts. To Chris for believing in me and for coordinating everything perfectly. To the incredible playtesters for trying their best to break the game in every possible way. To the team behind GB Studio for enabling us all to create new games for the handheld we love. To everyone whose plugins made this game so much better. To the whole community around GB Studio for being so helpful. And of course, to everyone who continues to support the releases of indie homebrew games. Buck and the Cursed Cartridge wouldn’t exist without all of you.
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Buck and The Cursed Cartridge is available to order from ModRetro. You can also check out playinstinct’s other games on their website or follow them on BlueSky to see some of the experiments and prototypes they’ve made.
Audio Engineer, Mac Technologist and Video Game Developer. Former Managing Editor of GBStudio Central. (he/him)
