I can’t remember how many quarters and weekends I dumped into the Kahala Bowling Alley (may it rest in peace) during my middle school and high school years. I fell in love with a number of arcade games, including Metal Slug 2, Marvel vs Capcom, and Area 51, but Time Crisis 2 was what I always had to play. It inspired me to make my own game with similar shooting mechanics, and since I had never seen it done in Flash I was motivated to be the first to release something.

Game (click to play)

I can’t remember why I didn’t finish this, but I got pretty far along in development of my Flash 4 zombie shooting game. There are actually 3 different locations that are pretty decently fleshed out, as well as 3 different weapons that you can pick up as you go through them. For some reason I never brought myself to create that final boss fight that would’ve sealed the deal…

Anyway, it’s almost 10 years later and I still think Graveyard Hunters is pretty fun. Give it a whirl.

Through the years I have started and not completed a pretty big handful of projects, and it’s been a shame to see them collecting dust. What better way to show these fatherless games and animations some love than expose them to the entirety of the internet?*

* Sounds cool.

So, on to project #1.

Heavy Weapon

I started Heavy Weapon in my last year in college (2006-2007). I was taking Interactive Animation, and saw it as a good opportunity to force me to stop being lazy and do something that would take a bit of effort. Of course I didn’t finish the game… but I still like the idea behind it and hopefully I’ll pick it up again one of these days.

Intro (click to view)

The plot behind the game is as so: in the future, on a distant planet, a fat alcoholic mechanic lives in a junk yard making his way from his repair business. But this new planet is still wild – it is filled with bandits and scoundrels, and the majority of his work involves vehicles and weaponry. He’s not the nicest guy and has a quick temper (being a booze-head doesn’t help either), and on just another day of bandit raids and mortar fire he decides he’s had enough. Dun dun dun.

Gameplay is inspired by side-scrolling arcade shooters like Metal Slug and Alien vs Predator mixed in with RPG elements from games like Diablo and Castlevania SOTN. I’ve always wanted to see shooters take on customizable and collectable items, and it makes sense to give the player a customizable backpack to arrange what they’re carrying as opposed to letting them have an infinite number of switchable weapons. I also feel like it’s more immersive (even in an arcade shooter) to allow the player greater interaction with the environment and NPC’s, so a little bit of that is included in this demo as well.

How far did I get? The engine is there for much of the game mechanic (minus vehicles). There’s a good couple of minutes of play to be had, with jumping puzzles, some basic enemies, traps, hidden weapons, and a little bit of NPC interaction. The art is clearly rough (and the intro even rougher), but I think it gives you a good idea of where I was trying to go. I believe the concept was quite fun and worked rather well. What do you think?

Game (click to play)