Denton-based creator of Western virtual reality game ‘Hopalong’ draws from his childhood

Giddy-up, buckaroo, there’s a new game in town.

Created by the Denton-based From the Future independent game studio, “Hopalong: The Badlands” is a virtual reality simulation available on Steam for the PC. Set in the Old West, the game has players perched on a stick horse, hopping, skipping or simply waving the controller to gallop across a dusty landscape and through dangerous mines.

According to From the Future CEO and co-founder Mike Christian, the game uses a “proprietary locomotion method called Oscillot” to avoid motion fatigue issues common to similar games that use VR glasses.

You begin the game, which mixes comedy with action, equipped with an eight-shooter. As you progress, you can unlock a pick ax, a double barrel shotgun, a sniper rifle and dynamite. You can also earn new stick horses, including Boss Boomity’s flying stick-pig, Pigasus.

“There are tons of hidden and not so hidden jokes and hilarious one-liners in the game. There are also moments that are actually very frightening — for example, in the darkness of the mines, a crazed miner comes at you out of the shadows with a pick ax,” Christian says.

While not as ubiquitous as certain other genres, such as horror and science fiction, the Western has a rich history in computer and video games, from “Oregon Trail” for home computers to “Stampede” for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision to “Red Dead Redemption” for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Next year, “Red Dead Redemption 2” will hit the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Christian has been interested in Western themes since he was a young boy growing up on a dairy farm outside of Kingfisher, Okla.

“I learned to ride at age 7 on a Shetland pony named Chalky Boy,” he says. “He was a clever and devilish little horse as he knew he could knock me off the back by running under the clotheslines. Yes, we actually had clotheslines.”

Christian’s memories of riding Chalky Boy played a major role in the formation of “Hopalong: The Badlands.”

“It influenced my thinking in coming up with the stick horse locomotion,” he says. “Early versions required you to jump up and down to move while trying to rope a stick cow with a lasso. While that was great fun, it was also exhausting. People can still do that if they like, but they can also just wave the controller up and down to move, which feels surprisingly natural.”

Christian has a long history with electronic gaming as well. He remembers getting goosebumps during the mid-’70s when he discovered that you could interact with a television set and play a video tennis game called “Pong.”

The first time he played the classic shooter “Defender” in the arcades during the early ’80s, he knew he wanted to be a programmer.

Christian’s associates at From the Future are also steeped in gaming history, having programmed games as a hobby for such early home computers as the TRS-80 Model 1, the Commodore 64 and the Amiga 500.

Christian and his computer cohorts met during the late ’90s at a Carrollton-based studio called Paradigm, where they worked on games for the Nintendo 64, GameCube, PlayStation 1, 2 and 3, Xbox and Xbox 360.

“We worked on mostly big-budget, licensed games such as ‘Duck Dodgers’ ‘Mission Impossible’ and ‘The Terminator,’” he says.

Christian believes North Texas is a “thriving and innovative” area for electronic entertainment and that Denton is a great place to ply his trade.

“We love working in Denton because being part of this community gives us great access to resources that are unique to a university town,” he says. “Along with great pizza, burgers and beer, we get to meet and work with enthusiastic and well-educated individuals who have contributed to our company in many ways.”

To play “Hopalong: The Badlands,” you need an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift Virtual Reality system and a personal computer that can power one of those units.

And, as Christian says, you also need “a sense of humor and gumption.”

This story was originally published December 28, 2017 at 8:21 AM with the headline "Denton-based creator of Western virtual reality game ‘Hopalong’ draws from his childhood."