While I’ve never been much into mecha myself, I recognize that a huge part of the population love their massive fighting robots. Judging by the campaign for their new 2D platform shooter, the developers at Rocket Punch may be the biggest mecha fans of all. Code: HARDCORE features innovative 2D animation that delivers vivid details and immersive backgrounds. Oh, and it also looks really fun.
Rocket Punch uses skeleton animation and sprite switching techniques to create highly detailed mechas with smooth, life-like movements, all of which required hundreds of hand-drawn elements for each mecha. When combined with rotating 2D animation and rendering techniques these elements create the illusion of high quality 3D graphics without the added strain on the players CPU.
Instead of relying on pre-rendered battle sequences, Code: HARDCORE gives the player complete control over their fighting style and combination attacks. Mechas can fly and dash at any time through the level in addition to equipping a variety of weapons, items, and perks. The mecha pilots are also playable as they can eject and fight outside of their mechas. This allows them to complete additional missions that require stealth and hacking abilities.
Code: HARDCORE has a basic story mode that features cinematic cut-scenes and allows players to learn more about the game’s background story. It has something to do with rebel space colonies attempting to take over Earth from their outpost on Mars. It’s a nice addition that risks being completely overshadowed by the game’s mulitplayer and co-op modes.
The campaign is already gaining traction on its $65,536 Kickstarter funding goal and still has over a month to go. At the end of the campaign, qualified backers will receive access to the Alpha demo. The demo features 4 of the 15 planned mechas from the final game in a 1-4 player Versus mode. Code: HARDCORE will be available for Mac, Linux, and PC and is estimated for release in 2017. Definitely worth looking into if you need your giant robot fix.
(Ed. We’ve added the promising Code: HARDCORE to our Kickstarter Curator page, check it out at Kickstarter.com/cliqist.)
This almost looks cool enough to get me into giant robot fighters… almost.
Read through it a few times looks good but these two sentences here have me a little bit puzzled
“Under the current budget, we were, fortunately, able to finish the game. However, we would love to continue to add new awesome features, fix bugs, and enhance the quality of the game. Thus, we need your support!”
So i get that the game is finished but they want to add stuff, so surely they could just go straight to early access, and not sure what they plan to do to enhance the game or what features they want to add (bar the stretch goals)
I took it to mean that they would be able to finish the game with the funds they already had, but that crowdfunding would give them more breathing room so they wouldn’t have to cut any features. I could be wrong though, sometimes things don’t translate properly.
Oh and they are crowdfunding here http://zhongchou.modian.com/item/3191.html?_mdsf=md_home_bd_1&_mpos=h_bd_1