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Donald Mustard’s an old-school gamer’s best buddy. When the creative director and lead designer for Chair Entertainment talks about the games that influence him, he doesn’t speak of the Halos, Call of Duties, and God of Wars of the industry. He goes back — way back — to the classics whose mere mention can’t help but bring smiles to the people who were gaming in the 80s.
“Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night are these open-world, non-linear games where you start with very little, and you progress when you find more stuff,” says Mustard. “Why aren’t people making more of these games?
“I honestly don’t know why. I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to make a non-handheld Metroid-esque game. We just finished Undertow, and we said, ‘We’re going to do it. No one else is doing it. Why don’t we try?'”
Early on, you can’t even climb anything until you find climbing
gear. And check out the mini-map design — very Castlevania.
Enter Shadow Complex. Due out August 19 for Xbox Live Arcade, this shooter/adventure game is as Metroidvania-y as they come. You won’t find screw attacks or gaseous forms here, but the influences drawn from the aforementioned legends — and let’s throw Zelda in there — are pretty clear.
See what Mustard has to say about the weapons and tools found in his game — and how they came to be. You almost don’t even need to have seen Shadow Complex in action to begin imagining just now Metroid/Castlevania its gameplay can be. It should make his new best friends proud….
The Foam
Donald Mustard: The Foam is a quick-hardening riot foam that can be used to access new areas throughout the game. Many vent covers can be blown open by shooting some foam into them and then watching as the foam expands to bust it apart.
The cool thing about the foam is that it will stick, expand, and then harden onto anything — so shoot it at an enemy, and he will freeze in place. Shoot a grenade into the foam for an amplified, powerful explosion. Use the foam on the legs of a mech to slow it down. Fire it into the optical sensors of a security door to fry the circuits.
The most powerful use of the foam gun is its ability to create platforms. Use it to build bridges, cover, walls, or anything else you can think of. The foam gives you the ultimate ability to go anywhere in the world.
In designing the foam, our goal was to create Shadow Complex’s signature item. Metroid has its morph ball, Gears of War its chainsaw, Castlevania its whip…we wanted something that really changed the dynamic of how you played the game, something that felt fresh and unique and that we had not seen before in a game.
Friction Dampener
DM: The Friction Dampener allows you to run at supersonic speeds. With it engaged you become a wrecking ball — as long as you can keep up your momentum, nothing can stop you.
You can run up walls, across ceilings, even across water. Enemies who get in your way disintegrate as you blow through them. You can even run straight through many walls and barriers that would otherwise block your progress.
In designing the Friction Dampener we looked at the different “speed” abilities we’ve seen in many games throughout the years, and we thought it would be cool to really expand the feature beyond anything we had seen by allowing you to run anywhere in the world as long as you could keep your momentum going.
This proved to be really fun and allowed us to design some of the more challenging puzzles found in the game — if you want to find all of the secrets in Shadow Complex, you will need to master the Friction Dampener.
Hook
DM: The Hook is a rapid-ascending grappling hook that allows you to quickly latch onto walls and ceilings.
Using the Hook to quickly zip around areas of the world is greatly amplified when used in combination with other abilities in the game. Use a triple jump with a hook shot at the apex to reach the top of narrow shafts. Use the hook to rip the shield out of the hands of a shock trooper or to dislodge an armored bot from a wall.
In designing the Hook we looked at some of our favorite examples of hook shots — mostly from different entries in the Zelda series. We wanted the super fast reel-in found in those games, but we wanted to combine that with a truly physics-based wire. The result is a unique take on a tried-and-true navigation ability.
Guns
DM: There are many different guns in Shadow Complex, but they are all used for the same purpose: shooting stuff.
The awesome thing about the guns — aside from getting some nearly unstoppable firepower late in the game — is that they are all tied into the leveling system. Killing guys gives you experience, but killing guys with skill gives you multipliers.
Get a headshot and you will double your experience gained. Get another while the multiplier is active to set it to 3X. Kill another enemy with a melee, a trap, or any of a variety of skill methods to boost the multiplier even higher — up to 10X. With the rights skills and a little strategy, you can use the experience multiplier to level up your character very quickly, which will unlock some of the coolest secrets and features in the game.
We wanted our guns to have a big impact not just on the enemies you fight, but on the way they shaped the replayability of the game. Many modern games are layering traditional RPG elements into their gameplay, and we thought this would work perfectly with the design of Shadow Complex.