Mike Huguenor (guitarist from Jeff Rosenstock) spent the final 12 months making a Sport Boy recreation that turns being a touring musician right into a retro-tinged narrative journey.
In the identical week that Mike Huguenor introduced his debut online game, he performed guitar with Jeff Rosenstock for the band’s nine-show residency in Chicago, spending his solely off evening going to an space e-book retailer to debate his new e-book concerning the historical past of DIY file label Asian Man Information. As Huguenor advised me once I talked to him in July, “typically when it rains, it pours.”
It’s a wild factor to see all of those types of media converge collectively, however that feels just like the spirit of plenty of indie and DIY tradition. Huguenor has been part of Jeff Rosenstock’s band for greater than a decade, whereas additionally being a mainstay of the DIY punk scene as part of different bands corresponding to Shinobu and Arduous Women. He additionally has historical past with Asian Man Information founder Mike Park, which led him to writing the 2026 music historical past tome Elvis Is Useless, I am Nonetheless Alive: The Story of Asian Man Information. And in between writing a e-book and touring with an energetic punk band, Huguenor additionally made a Sport Boy recreation all by himself.
His online game is a level-based journey recreation known as Browsing the Internet With the Alien. It’s an adaptation of his instrumental album from final 12 months (additionally titled Browsing the Internet With the Alien) and attracts inspiration from many Nintendo and retro gaming classics whereas additionally being narratively themed round existence as a touring musician. The sport is imminently releasing on Steam and itch.io and it’s additionally accessible in a handmade Sport Boy cartridge (whereas provides final). He spent the final 12 months utilizing GB Studio to develop it. Asking him a couple of potential Change launch, it’s one thing Huguenor would like to see however this complete course of is model new to him. Lower than a 12 months in the past, he was struggling to determine improvement and simply getting any of the degrees to work. Now he’s hand-crafting Sport Boy copies whereas launching on PC. With how a lot Huguenor has finished in 2026, there’s a part of me that expects a simultaneous console launch in a couple of weeks.
The origins of this concept began whereas Huguenor was touring his instrumental album final 12 months. At one of many reveals, he talked to Lauren Information founder Aaron Kovacs (who put out the unique model of Browsing the Internet With the Alien). Kovacs introduced up the thought of messing round with extra small run particular releases on the label. When Huguenor pitched the thought of a floppy disk with MIDI information of his music, Kovacs (who’s youthful than Huguenor) allegedly replied “what’s a floppy disk?” The age hole might need prevented a floppy disk restricted run, however Kovacs introduced up the thought of creating a Sport Boy recreation or one thing. From there, Huguenor’s worlds converged. He’s a lifelong gamer, recalling fond reminiscences of writing Nintendo as a child to pitch Mega Man bosses, and this concept of turning his music right into a playable online game took off.
In August 2025, the thought took form and Huguenor sought out learn how to make a Sport Boy recreation. It took some trial and error, however ultimately he got here throughout GB Studio and hopped into the neighborhood’s Discord and began determining learn how to make his personal online game. “A giant factor for me making this recreation was that I really feel like, I actually wished to make a recreation the place there was no taking pictures concerned. It was very attention-grabbing to me making this recreation as a result of it appears considerably problematically baked into the method of creating video games typically,” he mentioned after noticing how, by default, “Launch Projectile” is one in every of GB Studio’s built-in instructions.
One of many earliest issues he did for the sport was taking his guitar-only album and turning it into an 8-bit Sport Boy recreation soundtrack. He did all of this whereas on tour with Jeff Rosenstock and PUP final fall. That tour was additionally when the early design ideas for ranges happened. It seems that touring isn’t germane to recreation improvement so the deeper improvement didn’t begin occurring till he obtained again dwelling. Tour fed into the sport’s plot and gameplay although, because it follows a touring musician all through their day. Huguenour defined: “My preliminary idea I had was I wished it to be a recreation that lasted the size of the album however that may very well be replayed and skilled in a different way every time in order that there was a purpose to return there was a purpose to relive the music of the album.”
In a approach, the sport drives dwelling the feelings and emotions that Huguenor expressed within the lyrics-less songs. “Typically a tune with out lyrics, you type of know what you need to say in it earlier than the lyrics even seem. You’ll be able to intuit that there’s a sure emotion occurring, or a sure type of inside area that simply purely the music is form of touching upon.” he mentioned. “It was actually vital to me to have the ability to type of categorical extra via these songs as a result of I felt like I wasn’t certain all the inside was reaching folks but.”
A few of that interiority comes from the retro video games Huguenor drew inspiration from. Whereas it’s refined (like his first album X’ed Out together with a tune known as Fast Shot, which comes from Last Fantasy), his music has had gaming influences all alongside. This was simply the primary time it may very well be made extra overt. Last Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (as Dragon Quest was initially known as in America) have been foundational video games for Huguenor rising up, as he remembers getting an NES when he was round 6 years previous. “These have been actually enormous ones for me as a result of they gestured in direction of one thing bigger, you already know,” he mentioned about his NES RPG experiences. “And particularly at the moment it felt like this sense of exploration and pleasure and every thing.”
He stored up with video games from Tremendous Nintendo to Nintendo 64 to PlayStation, however ended up falling off for some time till the Nintendo Change. It’s value noting that his first band Shinobu fashioned in 2002, so it stands to purpose that making music and touring stymied going deep into gaming then.
As for what introduced him again to desirous to make his very personal recreation, Huguenor went on to say “I’ve all the time felt that video video games are a chance for narrative like some other creative format, like music or movie or literature. It’s a area for narrative, however this area for narrative has extra interactivity than others. Due to that, it simply has some totally different choices and I actually wished to discover that.” (it is sensible he’s a fan of Hideo Kojima and Suda51).
That viewpoint explains why he carries a torch for a recreation like Castlevania: Simon’s Quest: “[The game] all the time felt prefer it was gesturing in direction of one thing larger the place it is not simply facet scrolling however that like oh you possibly can impact the atmosphere, you possibly can drain this pool to get additional and all these items. It is saying that extra issues are potential and that is one thing that I all the time search for in music. After I’m making a recreation or making something I need any individual who’s receiving it to have that feeling that extra issues are potential than they may have realized they usually can do greater than they understand.”
That looks like Huguenor’s mission assertion with the Browsing the Internet With the Alien trilogy. He made an instrumental album that was inside his identified wheelhouse after which that led him to go exterior of his consolation zone to make an 8-bit online game and album. “So with [this game] I actually wished to be like folks can do that. Folks can comply with via on their concept and make it actual. Deliver it into the world and never solely that however that there are nonetheless new issues to discover in an previous format.”
That’s what he needs to do together with his new file label Infinite Baffle, which at present homes the 8-bit adaptation of Browsing the Internet With the Alien and the online game. It’s an area for experimentation and collaboration with out the pressures of larger bands and touring. He can work on a short-term collab, launch it, and put it on some cassettes and never fear about promoting 1000’s of copies to make a residing. Past music, Huguenor is likely to be making an attempt so as to add extra hyphenates to his identify with movie scripts, quick tales, and perhaps even one other online game. As he mentioned, “Actually no matter somebody’s going to let me do, I will be doing.”
He described the origins of the tune Ominous Rattling Intensifies, which was (very clearly) impressed by Last Fantasy boss music, in a approach that ties into this general theme of Infinite Baffle and his views on video games: “You already know, Ominous Rattling Intensifies is an auto-generated subtitle that was on a video I used to be watching to elucidate the creepy sounds occurring within the background. Nevertheless it additionally very a lot describes our present day, I’d say. And so this sense of all of us being in, we’re all slightly bit trapped in a form of boss combat proper now, I really feel like. And in order that was a music, musically, that tune was making an attempt to offer folks one thing the place they really feel in their very own life {that a} connection to that type of feeling quite than having it explored via the avatar of the Black Mage or the Pink Fighter or no matter.”
Right here’s hoping all of us get via our boss fights and have the area to experiment and create cool stuff, whether or not it’s music or a Sport Boy recreation about being a touring musician impressed by retro video video games.
