Hipster City Cycle sells thousands while pixelizing Philly, rocking local chiptunes

Hipster City Cycle, the iPhone game in development for over a year, was released last week and according to developer Port127, the initial outlook is rosey.
Port127, whom we last spoke with last year, is made up of lead programmer Michael Highland and part-time artists and developers Kevin Jenkins, Keith McKnight and Al Alsup. Hipster City Cycle is the group’s first game and, despite not being “featured” in the App Store, Highland says that the game’s sales number in the thousands. The game also received a mention in The New York Times.
Hipster City Cycle features Binky, a wannabe cycling legend. The player must guide Binky through the meticulously pixelized maps of local ‘hoods and landmarks in South Philly, West Philly, Northern Liberties and Center City. Parodies of local favorites like Kung Fu Necktie, Silk City Diner and Rittenhouse Square should make Philly resident smile.
After the jump, see gameplay video and learn about the most requested feature.


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Players tilt the iPhone to steer and tap the corners of the screen to pedal. Holding both corners makes Binky do a track stand. Binky earns cash and followers by high fiving pedestrians and by performing tricks. Getting hit by a car Paperboy-style, of course, ends the race.
In an instant message conversation with Technically Philly, Highland said that Port127 plans on releasing a patch in the next month to cleaning up some minor bugs and address some player feedback. The crew also plans on releasing the app’s chiptune music as an album.
“Most of the time on HCC was us learning what we were doing,” said Highland. “If we were to remake the game today from scratch it’d take three to six months, probably.” He also added that the most common request was for additional cities.
Hipster City Cycle is the second in what will be consecutive releases for the Philadelphia game developer community. Last week, Old City-based Cipher Prime released Pulse and Center City-based Final Four Games tells Technically Philly that it is nearing the release date of Jamestown.
Disclosure: Technically Philly received a free copy of the game.