''Renga'' is a

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a Video game genre, subgenre 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 typ ...

video game developed and published by British studio wallFour. Designed for movie theaters for up to one hundred players, players are given laser pointers and are tasked with cooperatively building and defending a space ship. It was showcased at 2012's Indiecade, 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) or cinema (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, or simply theater, is a business ...

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

laser pointer A laser pointer or laser pen is a (typically battery-powered) handheld device that uses a laser diode to emit a narrow low-power visible laser beam (i.e. Coherence (physics), coherent light) to highlight something of interest with a small brigh ...

. 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 () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...

s and

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

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's ''L.A.S.E.R. Tag''. ''Renga'' was selected as one of thirty-six finalists at Indiecade 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 of Queens in New York City. The museum originally opened in 1988 as the Am ...

. 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 Award for Game of the Year, Game Developers Choice Awards and ...

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

, 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 Paste is a term for any very thick viscous fluid. It may refer to: Science and technology * Adhesive or paste ** Wallpaper paste ** Wheatpaste, a liquid adhesive made from vegetable starch and water * Paste (rheology), a substance that behaves as ...

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'' is a British video game journalism website. It was launched in July 2007 to focus on PC games and was acquired by Gamer Network, a network of sites led by ''Eurogamer'', in May 2017. History ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' ...

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