Roblox’s Hamilton Simulator lets you rap Redcoats to death with a squad of Founding Fathers
Guns and Clicks
What do you get if you combine someone unwilling to throw away their shot, and a video game unwilling to pass up the chance to add yet another pop-culture staple to its collection? A lite RPG based on historical rap-musical Hamilton you can play via Roblox, that’s what.
Hamilton Simulator takes a number of songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s acclaimed Broadway show about the frenemyship between 18th-century politicians Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr and uses them to create a series of 10 levels that loosely follow Hamilton and his fellow Founding Fathers’ travails during the American War of Independence.
In keeping with Miranda’s setting of key moments in the conflict and the creation of the US Constitution to rap, Hamilton Simulator will let you form a squad of characters - including Hamilton, as well as rivals such as James Madison and Charles Lee, Hamilton’s lover Maria Reynolds, ally Hercules Mulligan (who needs no introduction) and the Schuyler Sisters - before battling your way through waves of Redcoats and collecting the coins they drop.
Naturally, you’ll be using your rap ability itself as a weapon, blasting away British soldiers using ten different tracks from the musical. There’s also the option to customise attacks and animations for each of the characters after you’ve recruited them, spending coins earned by defeating foes to equip your characters with better gear.
The levels glimpsed in the trailer include the harbour where Hamilton first arrives in the US, The Public Theater in Manhattan (where the real-life musical first premiered, as a fun Easter egg), the ball where he first meets Angelica and Eliza Schuyler, George Washington’s office, and the frontline of the Revolutionary War at the Battle of Yorktown. The levels were designed with the input of the musical’s designer David Korins.
Developers Super League’s adaptation of the musical into the video game apparently has the blessing of Miranda himself, per the AP. The current simulator currently stops around the halfway point of the three-hour musical, including songs such as You’ll Be Back, Guns and Ships and The Schuyler Sisters. The devs hope to bring the rest of the show - and Hamilton’s story - to their Roblox sim in the months to come.