AntonBlast - The Dynamite Demo
19A few days prior to this video, the Indie World Showcase came by, and one of the featured games on the video is AntonBlast. The game won't be out until November of this year, but a demo is now available. It seems oddly early into production for there to be a demo, but I suppose this may be a good time to seek out feedback, as the game is presumably in a beta state at the moment. I found the animation style and manic energy charming, so I decided to try it out.
I'm not entirely sure what the story for the game is, other than Satan heckling Anton, and this somehow results in him journeying out and blowing up places. I don't know where Annie plays into this, or why she decided to get out there too, but Anton and Annie play exactly the same.
This game unashamedly wears heavy inspiration from two sources. For those of you who have been gaming during the era of the Game Boy Advance (and AntonBlast's low resolution approach hearkens back to the GBA), you might recognize the gameplay structure as very similar to that of Wario Land 4, with both Anton and Annie having a counterpart to Wario's shoulder tackle move as their main means of attack, but also the end of the stage setting off a timer that requires you to make your way back to the start of the stage before the time runs out.
The other, earlier reference, is to the animation styles of David Feiss and Patrick Ventura. The official trailer shows Anton yelling at the camera in a similar style as somewhere between those two animators, and most plainly, there is a devil character with a similar body shape, acerbic snark, and the exact same flamboyant way of speaking as The Red Guy from Cow and Chicken
This trailer takes us through Boiler City (where I use Anton) and Cinnamon Springs (where I use Annie). Boiler City is a city full of old-fashioned brick buildings, while Cinnamon Springs is a mountainous area that later gives way to a group of pagodas built into the mountainsides higher up.
Though this I attribute solely to myself and not yet being used to the controls, I keep pressing A instead of B to use the springs that bounce you between foreground and background. I was also pretty confused as to what was meant by "clutch" at a point late into Boiler City. That being said, this is an oddly satisfying game to play, probably because of its boundless energy and the game encouraging you to destroy as many random things as possible to build up that combo meter. Not sure what it does, but I like seeing that number go up. I also like how the controls feel surprisingly tight and responsive; your character feels like they have weight, and you are always in control of their movements.
Why are all these places getting blown up though? Especially Boiler City, which I presume is full of people in those buildings.
As for whether I'll get the game or not, I'm not sure. There is a lot on my plate, but I liked Wario Land 4, and I like seeing promising traditional 2-D platformers like these. Considering it's not another seven months until its release (which is probably not a lot of time at all from the development side), I can take my time with my decisions.