Hi everyone, I’m Danilo from JoyMasher and I’m excited to tell you more about Vengeful Guardian Moonrider, our next big game! And believe me, it was quite an interesting ride.
After tackling the run ‘n’ gun genre with our previous game Blazing Chrome (inspired by timeless classics like Contra), I wanted to stay with Vengeful Guardian Moonrider. classics of ’90s action players while updating the experience in exciting new ways.
For that, I dug into the territory of 16-bit games and even some early CD games, and tried to create an immersive experience, like you just found in the basement. its an unreleased MegaDrive/Genesis game. For example, I used red book-style audio and even recorded a speech to give Vengeful Guardian Moonrider a real sense of the era.
But the game wasn’t our only inspiration for Vengeful Guardian Moonrider, and I also tried to incorporate the various cultural influences I had in my childhood, playing action games. great Japanese, watch black anime and read speculative and questionable sci-fi novels. Genocyber, Cybernetic Guardians, Kamen Rider Black, and Hakaider have all been reworked to help disrupt the kind of universe in which Vengeful Guardian Moonrider takes place. Rewatching all those great shows is of course a very serious business and not at all an excuse to spend great quality time, hehe…
All of the character designs in Vengeful Guardian Moonrider, and the game’s overall art direction, were inspired by Japanese artist Keita Amemiya, the designer behind many of the video games, anime, and tokusatsu from at that time. I also draw a lot of inspiration from HR Giger, the artist behind the otherworldly images of the Alien series.
Most enemies have a lot of biomechanical parts and give them a very creepy feel. The boss rooms wallpapers also have a bit of body horror and organic elements, giving them another layer of creepy feel I was looking for while still keeping a very cool look to them! I am also very much influenced by yokais (Japanese demons) and the way they are depicted in traditional Japanese art.
As you have guessed by now, references are very important to me and a great source of inspiration, and I think they are imperative to help me get in the right mindset to create an atmosphere. Horrible sci-fi you want to explore. Everything in Vengeful Guardian Moonrider is harsh, dark, and moody, but not without reason. The story is also a dark tale of an alternate reality, where an oppressive nation uses its weapons – defenders – to subjugate other nations and its own people. Moonrider is a defender who, after an incident, decides to fight for his people and destroy the evil regime.
We know that there are a lot of action adventure indie games around, however, we are trying really hard to create something special, something that recreates the feel of adventure games. action of the 90s while bringing a new dimension to it. Atmosphere is of course a great tool for that, but gameplay is also fundamental.
Vengeful Guardian Moonrider is an old fashioned action platformer, but we’ve managed to combine fast arcade style with a bit of item hunting and exploration with the Chip System, giving you possibilities. and new powers in your play. For example, there are power chips that can give you double jumps, weapon range expansion, HP regeneration and lots of other useful abilities, allowing you to really choose and play the way you want.
And that ends for this blog post! I hope you are as excited as we are about Vengeful Guardian Moonrider and hope you enjoy it as much as we are doing. Stay tuned for more nostalgic love and stay tuned for Vengeful Guardian Moonrider, coming to PlayStation soon.
