Aleksandar Kuzmanovic [MrAmlice] – Coding / Design / Art / SFX
Brian Havey [zminusone] – Music / Additional SFX
Create by Aleksandar Kuzmanovic Games, Gunlock is a super fast action game for fans of some old fashioned score chasin’. The game features an old school game boy color palette and over a dozen weapons including pistols, shotguns, rockets, and even a lightning gun! Players run around a fixed map evading attacks and killing enemies with the goal of trying to maximize combo multipliers to break high scores. During battle, players will earn coins that they can use to purchase un-lockable weapons and paint jobs to change the color scheme of the battle field. Players are also able to compete against other players across the Steam leader boards on 3 different stages. The game contains 3 mega bosses that are huge and extremely challenging to defeat. If you’re a fan of ultra fast paced action that can be played quickly (less than 5 min), then you check out the trailer for GUNLOCK below!
Back in the late 1980’s: gamers played as Samus Aran in the original Metroid on Nintendo (1986) or Super Metroid on the SNES 8 years later. Metroid broke the mold with its side-scrolling, weapons based adventure, filled with secrets, upgrades, challenging boss battles, a classic storyline, AND the hero was female.
Personally, I remember playing those classics at home but it wasn’t until Metroid Fusion (2002) that I fell face-first into the franchise and began my obsession with purchasing other Gameboy Advance reissues of this classic series. The suits, weapons, and sci-fi concepts had me captivated.
Unfortunately, there haven’t been too many more of these classic Metroids developed with these same stylistic choices we all remember. But that hasn’t stopped others from trying their hand…
*Metroid promotional box art.
A Modern Approach to a Classic Genre
In recent years, “Metroidvania” games have seen an increase in development and release, reminding us of the action, exploration, and heart-pounding pressure of these classics. Reimaginings allow adults to reminisce about “the good days” and give a younger audience the chance to experience that same level of difficulty, visual, and audial excitement: nothing is better than a successful run.
A Robot Named Fight emulates this exact feeling; it’s a Metroidvania roguelike that stands all on its own. Developed by Matt Bitner Games, it was released on Steam in early September 2017.
The player welcomed to a polluted world, where mechanical gods have ascended, leaving the “lower order beings” to fend for themselves on a desolate wasteland. Their mission is to make the best of what they have and cultivate the world abandoned. Unfortunately for those left behind, a forgotten enemy lies amidst the stars: the Megabeast, a pulsating moon-sized orb of flesh, eyes, mouths, and reproductive organs (an important detail).
*Opening tutorial
You take the role of a single robot (presumably named Fight) to battle this menace and its unstoppable plague of children spawns. Explore procedurally-generated labyrinths (over 4 billion combinations total – with a B) to uncover randomized power-ups and artifacts, find secrets, and blast meaty creatures in this deliciously gory presentation of a genre lovingly remembered.
A Robot Named Fight includes a number of notable features:
Prove your worth with true permadeath (you’ll die a fair amount)
Challenge 60 menacing enemies solo or with a friend via local co-op
Adapt to a different item set every run with more than 80 unique items total
Complete achievements to unlock new content
Play using your favorite controller
Visuals & Design
Any player who enjoys Metroidvania games are welcomed by this familiar presentation: as it’s reminiscent of metroid, it’s very easy to jump right into the game and feel at home. Colorful backgrounds with parallax are lively and active: genuinely a great visual experience.
The changing runs enable some upgrades to be collected at different times, forcing the player to come up with modified play-styles if not received in a familiar (or assumed) order. The monster sprites designs are a mix between original classics like Metroid and modern games like Terraria. Each monster is creatively designed to be frightening; the developers must have some interesting nightmares…
As the first boss goes down without much of a fight, the unlockable upgrade now gets “unearthed” for future playthroughs, allowing the player to discover the ability without having to repeat the same boss battle every time. There is no guarantee that each boss will be encountered in the same order on each playthrough, especially considering the 4,000,000,000 combinations possible.
Audio
In some moments, the music is fast-paced and chiptune: providing a retro ambience that is immediately pleasing to the ears. In more tense moments, the music changes and becomes reminiscent of Castlevania with an organ’s melancholy riff being accompanied by a synth-y bass and other elements. The soundtrack is extremely satisfying and is a musical love-note to retro games.
Contemporary sound design is coupled with the retro styled visuals and soundtrack, creating a sense of morbid curiosity. The meaty squish sounds of certain environments and grotesque enemies remind us we are playing a game for the modern age, in a nostalgic package.
These were sounds we imagined playing retro consoles, but during a time when sound cards could only handle 4 simultaneous tones at a time. A Robot Named Fight delivers on every front: visually and audibly.
Gameplay & Impression
The main menu gives you a silhouette of the Megabeast, the game opens and your robot is taking its first steps, as though it had previously malfunctioned or is not in the best of shapes. Routes are hidden among blocks that need to be shot in order to be noticed, player exploration is not only advised: it is required Since the game design will change with each playthrough, this level of experimentation is likely to be your focus.
My only criticism of the game is the lack of save stations coupled with the randomly generated map. It provides an unnecessary stack of difficulty against the player when power-ups are kept away from the player with no reliable method for procuring them.
The obvious response to this is “get gud” but it does pull me out of the experience. Other than this, the game is solid in overall feel. Controls can be bound to a keyboard or controller, easily changed within the settings menu.
Bosses are to be encountered at random, with only a “GET READY!” text serving as your moment to analyze the enemy and the enclosure you’ll fight them in. In my eyes, a perfect amount of time to break down your first move against a new boss, especially on the first play-through, this is an appreciated detail.
Final Thoughts
A Robot Named Fight is a great contender for the best Metroidvania game developed this year, and in my mind, in recent memory. As a gamer who still emulates Metroid Fusion, it was more than a pleasure to play a game that had even more to offer!
For the price of a large pizza, you can’t go wrong with this purchase. It deserves a spot on your Steam list, no doubt. Besides, it’s not like that pizza has 4 billion combinations available, anyway.
If you spliced the point-and-click mechanics of Escape from Monkey Island and the paranoid, gory horror of John Carpenter’s seminal masterpiece The Thing, you’d end up somewhere close to Peridium. Created as part of AdventureJam 2017 by Powerhoof, this short but atmospherically grisly point and click adventure is worth a play.
You assume the role of Doctor James Turner, an expert in fungal organisms, who has been working for a decade alongside his wife at a remote Antarctic research station. Strange and ancient fungus was found deep under the ice; as Turner and his wife were nearing the completion of their work, something terrible happened…
Cue the dramatic start of Peridium, where Turner barricades himself inside a lab and must fight for survival and find a way out of his desperate situation.
Fungus and spores have become a bit of a go-to villain of late (a la The Last of Us, or The Girl With All The Gifts) and although they don’t feature especially prominently, the nature of airborne spores adds a great deal to the paranoia and suspicion of the plot, especially trapped in such a confined space.
The plot is largely communicated via a series of tense and agitated monologues from the protagonist, with the occasional interaction with another character. Peridium has an outstanding narrator, but has a tendency to over-rely on him, rather than show us the action. However, considering the game took less than a week to create, the reasons for this are clear.
Alongside the stellar voice acting, the minimalist score really adds to the mounting tension, particularly during Turner’s psychotic episodes. Given the limited surroundings that the game takes place in, having a solid score in place really does make all of the difference to providing an immersive environment for the player.
The mechanics are also great, really embodying the spirit of classic point-and-click adventures like Monkey Island or Sam & Max Hit The Road. Items must be obtained and utilised in much the same way as these games, but of course given the grittier realism of Peridium, these item combinations are rather more grounded – no trading gopher repellent for a carrot cake in this game!
And it hardly needs mentioning that Peridium is gorgeous – I mean, just look at the screenshots. It seems almost like a backhanded compliment to say that the graphics could have been straight out of a late-nineties LucasArts game, but saying so is intended wholeheartedly as a plus point.
I for one would love to see a fleshed out and expanded-upon version of Peridium, more fully exploring that remote and isolated research outpost. In just a few short scenes, Powerhoof communicate a strong framework and a powerful sense of paranoia and despair that are true to both the mechanical genre of classic point-and-click adventure games, and the narrative genre of sci-fi survival horror.
For many, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was one of the first game systems they owned. After the success of Atari and the unfortunate issue plaguing video game systems in the early 1980’s, NES was poised to either elevate the video game industry or put the last nail in its coffin. Due to a smart marketing idea of rebranding the idea of a home video game system (“Entertainment System” instead of “video game system”, “control deck” instead of “console”, “game paks” instead of “video games’, etc), it was viewed as something new and different from its predecessors. Another way they separated themselves from others was to push for unique and stunning nes art for their games. They wanted to entice gamers to buy theirs, and thus nes game covers had beautiful box art. Pop on your nostalgia cap and take a trip with us to revisit some of the most phenomenal nes cover art of all time.
#20 Anticipation
This one… wow… well, this one is just so staggeringly bad that it goes full circle and is just spectacular. It is like a horrifying time capsule from 1988 that you just can’t turn away from. The hair, the clothes, the fake looks of excitement… its all just so beautiful.
# 19 The Mutant Virus: Crisis in a Computer World
The Mutant Virus came out in 1992 as computers were becoming increasingly more popular and the thoughts of artificial intelligence were becoming a reality. The game banked on those technological breakthroughs by fighting back against the technology that is trying to take over Its fun comic book inspired cover didn’t quite match the game but is really cool none-the-less.
#18 Battle Chess
Imagine being the poor artist hired to make chess look fun and exciting… well, they managed to do it! Most kids had viewed chess as that boring game their dad made them play, but just throw in some fight scenes and murders and its fun again! It is pretty impressive how the vibrant box art looks like an RPG but was just selling kids a board game that had been around for hundreds of years.
#17 Rampage
Looking at this box art instantly gives me a jolt of nostalgia and makes me want to dig out my old nes and see if it still works. While the art may not be overly spectacular, it does something that not many nes box art did… actually shows exactly what happens in the game! So many covers were misleading and lead to disappointment when you got home and started playing it. But this game promised you could destroy buildings and eat helpless victims… and you could!
#16 Iron Sword: Wizards & Warriors II
While it doesn’t jump out too much, it has a lovely soft fantasy novel kind of feel and a…. wait… is that… it’s Fabio! From romance novels to selling I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter and even to video game covers, Fabio has been there and done that.
#15 Metal Gear
Even though it is clearly a tracing of Kyle Reese from the Terminator, thus making it a perfect representation of Konami’s rough copycat era… it is still so badass. It was released in 1987, 3 years after the Terminator was in theaters, and perfectly attracted the kids, like me, that wanted to shoot the hell out of things in my game besides jumping on turtle shells.
#14 Zen Intergalactic Ninja
Zen is a character that was originally created for a comic book series and was drawn by prolific artists including Mike Mignola, the creator of Hellboy. For the video game, they added a villain called Lord Contaminous and kept with the bold graphic imagery from the comics. New Zen material has been published as recently as 2012.
#13 Ghosts ‘N Goblins
Capcom was not known for good quality box art, but where they excelled was an embracing of the Tron inspired technicolor of the 80’s. It also aimed, quite successfully, to connect the game with its arcade version, which was a successful marketing tool to sell the game.
#12 Gradius
With a slightly Star Wars inspired cover and a huge following from its arcade version, Konami didn’t think to far outside the box with this 1985 release… or did they? Most of their early box art kept the entirety of their art within the confines of the grey border. But this cover uses that convention to create a 3d sensation and giving the cover a sense of depth and movement.
#11 Tag Team Wrestling
What makes the box art for this title special? It was the first time a known comic book artist, Frank Cirocco, designed the cover for a game. It was sold in 1986 during the golden era of the WWF.
#10 Gauntlet
Based on the arcade classic, Gauntlet comes from Tengen games who actually released a scandalous unlicensed version without the Nintendo stamp of approval. Once a compromise was reached between both sides, a registered version was re-released. Comic book colorist Joe Chiodo designed the box art with a more realistic edge in mind and aimed to draw in as many different types of gamers at the same time.
#9 Castlevania
Castlevania represented the high point of Konami’s stylized covers. It is lovingly inspired by ‘The Norseman’, a painting from the 1970’s by Frank Frazetta. It’s bold colors, sense of adventure and ominous villain had nes users grabbing it off the shelf.
#8 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
After a few years of dreadful copy and paste box art, Konami finally hit the mark again in 1991 when they brought on comic book artist Michael Dooney to create a totally radical cover for their new game.
#7 Dragon Warrior
This iconic game, released in 1989, started an entire genre of games that had not yet been explored on the nes: the RPG. The box art was striking and vivid… almost looking like a painting or a scene from a fantasy movie.
#6 Crystalis
This 1990 action/RPG pays homage to the classic look of Dungeons & Dragons art, signaling a generation of nerds (I mean that in a good way!) to put down the dice and pick up the controller. Set in a post apocalyptic world far in the future after a thermonuclear disaster, the game is invigorated with new monsters not seen in other RPGs, which are beautifully illustrated on the box art.
#5 Super Mario Bros.
Nintendo originals often had very simple pixelated covers that didn’t quite match up to some of the more artfully designed covers. But for some titles it didn’t matter, like the classic of all classics, 1985’s Super Mario Bros. Breaking blocks, shooting fire and kicking turtle shells… good times.
#4 The Guardian Legend
The Guardian Legend had that slightly menacing cover that looked just scary enough for your mom to say no and buy you Q*bert instead. Which of course made you want to play it that much more, so you found out which friend had it and played it at their house as much as possible after school. While it wasn’t as scary as expected, its clever gameplay elements would appear in a more polished way in games like Zelda.
#3 Kid Icarus
Kid Icarus is viewed by many as the best of the Nintendo designed covers. While it still has the classic pixelated look, it manages to capture the essence of the game and look like a ton of fun! Despite being criticized for its difficult later levels, it is a cult classic whose image immediately strikes a sense of nostalgia in many.
#2 The Legend of Zelda
Zelda’s box art is deceptively simple. It does not give any indication of exactly what gameplay would entail, but the clever missing section of the crest and a key next to it clues you in that you will need to find something that is missing, but it may not be so easy. Once you open the box and pull out the shimmering gold nes cartridge, the outer design is tied together even further.
#1 Bubble Bobble
When I asked a few friends what cover art made them feel the most nostalgic, the most common answer was Bubble Bobble. People like the way it didn’t take itself seriously, embraced the cartoony silliness of the characters and successfully matched what the game was like. It was an instant hit and spawned dozens of sequels.
In Super Turbo Demon Busters! you assume command of a team of mercenaries accidentally stranded on the most dangerous planet in the universe, inhabited by almost every conceivable monster – and worse, it’s only a matter of time before your squad is transformed to join their ranks…
Luckily, your team is well equipped to deal with the assembled hordes of evil, armed with rocket launchers, plasma rifles, machine guns, chainsaws, sharp sticks…well, OK, maybe not the sticks. But axes, at least.
Super Turbo Demon Busters! takes a lot of inspiration from the sci-fi and horror genres; particular stand-outs are Aliens and Doom, the latter being an especially obvious influence in the strikingly beautiful graphic style. Coupled with a classically tinny and perfectly fitting audio track, you feel like you could easily be playing Super Turbo Demon Busters! on a SNES.
There’s a glib, sarcastic humour that prevails through the plot – such as it is – that really suits the game, sharply capturing the spirit of late eighties, early nineties sci-fi pop culture. There’s almost a feel of Dungeon of the Endless about Super Turbo Demon Busters!, but with none of the more complex strategy.
Gameplay is relatively simple and split into a few different areas; there’s an overland map where you proceed on rails from one stage to another, interspersed with a few bonus missions that occasionally pop up; a team management screen, where you can purchase upgrades and dispatch your cargo ship to find supplies; and lastly, the bread and butter of STDB!, the stage maps, where you confront monsters to progress overland.
Each merc is gifted in a different way and wields a different weapon. All the usual suspects are here, from the sniper to the shotgun specialist. Each gets a bonus to attacking with a certain type of weapon, but can use any in your arsenal, which grows the more you explore.
Ammo, weapon drops and credits all spawn throughout stage exploration, but also appear more liberally in loot boxes that are typically awarded upon completion of a stage. The presence of these seems a little tagged-on, almost like there’s a looming threat of microtransactions in the game’s future, but at the time of writing, there’s no evidence of that.
Despite the appeal of the humour, it just feels as though there’s an entire chunk of game missing, mostly around the area of combat. Monsters that spawn on the stage map are defeated by attacking in a turn-based system. At the end of each turn health is deducted from all parties, and whoever runs out first, loses.
There are some quirks, like zombies that become invulnerable to weapons fire after a set number of turns, necessitating a switch to melee. But mostly, you just end up doing a lot of clicking, which is fine at first, but after a few hours it just gets a bit tiresome.
There is an element of skill involved, but not much of one; no particular approach seems to work better than another. Eventually you will just run into a room that is much harder than the others, and you’ll die. And as there’s no way to predict what one will appear, your choice of merc seems totally arbitrary.
Ultimately, STDB! boils down to being an ammo management game – upgrade a merc, spam it until your ammo runs low, and then switch to another. Rinse and repeat, lasting as long as you can against the endless hordes, enjoying a sarcastic comment or a pop culture reference or three along the way.
Super Turbo Demon Busters! is available on Steam – follow this link to find the official site.
