WEST ALLIS — Inside a West Allis home, one video game developer is traveling back in time by creating games for retro consoles.
"What video games allow me to do is explore two of my favorite things, interactive media and storytelling," John Vanderhoef, an indie video game developer, said.
The games don't just have a vintage aesthetic. They are put onto a cartridge that is physically inserted into the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. He made the game Mega Kaiju Boom Ball in 2025 for a console built in 1983.
"I can imagine myself being an old person and retired and still doing this work as a hobby," he said.
He codes and designs from his home office. Rather than making high-tech games with state-of-the-art graphics, Vanderhoef prefers the creative challenge posed by old-school consoles.
"You can only have so much visual information. In general, the game can only be so big. You can only have so many actions the player can take," Vanderhoef said.
He began developing in 2019 and has made seven games. You can find his games by visiting his game development label website. Each game costs between $50-$70 and takes about 8-18 months to make.
"There's also a niche ready-made audience in a world that's really hard to get your sort of project noticed. It's really easy to be like, hey, this is a NES game, and people usually between 35-55 are going to raise their eyebrows, and at least give you like 10 seconds of their time, which is helpful."
Watch the story to see what John Vanderhoef's games look like...
All that being said, this isn't actually his full-time job. He is a film, television, and media professor at CSU Dominguez Hills in California (yes, he lives in West Allis and teaches in California). To finance the game development, he typically crowdfunds. His most recent game, Mega Kaiju Boom Ball, had a goal of $6,000. He raised $18,501.
His last game came out in late 2025. He is already working on a new project called Darken Maid.
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