River City Ransom Underground Kickstarter launches, offers officially licensed sequel

The endless parade of retro remake Kickstarters continues with the newly announced River City—wait, what? This time it's River City Ransom , seriously? Oh man oh man oh man this is going to be awesome.

Canadian developer Conatus Creative is planning a pixel-riffic officially licensed sequel to River City Ransom, called River City Ransom Underground. It will feature new animations and characters, but the 8-bit graphics and open world setting of the original will remain. Up to four-players can play co-op with updated physics and interactive environments.

Young whippersnappers may not remember, but the original 1990 River City Ransom was one of the first times a side-scrolling beat-em-up included RPG elements and an explorable open world. You can see what the original game looked like in various corners of the internet, like this one . Side note: at 0:40 in that video the player enters “The Frat Guys' Turf,” and all of the enemies are wearing pink polo shirts. This is hilariously appropriate 20 years later.

The team is looking for $180,000 Canadian to keep themselves stocked up on pixels and ramen until the game ships in September 2014. If your life has been curiously empty without the River City ruffians, head to their Kickstarter page and look around.