I think the combat system and the humor with the wide variety of monsters sets it apart. We had this vision of making this game a parody, but as the game grew, we redid everything in the game at least three times, polished the combat system, and redid every animation. So we borrowed a lot of the stuff from things that we liked. As Mridul said before, it wasn’t going to be a serious project, it was just for practice. We also wanted the goof of Broforce in the game.Īnd what do you think sets Alter Army apart from those games?īansal : Well, frankly, at first I didn’t really know what set it apart. The beautiful monster art in Risk Of Rainand the fights and the game feels of Nuclear Throne and Vlambeer’s other project, Luftrausers. Pancholi: I would say Risk Of Rain and Nuclear Throne were the biggest inspiration for the game. What games do you see as being the biggest inspirations for Alter Army, and in what ways? We redid a lot of things several times, so it’s like we made two or three different games in the process of making one. There’s a huge difference between the finished game and the game’s initial concept it’s like two different games. Two months passes by and, I don’t even know why we named it Alter Army - yes it took around two-to-three months to name this unnamed project of ours - now the stuff just went on for a couple of months and we got greenlit and a lot of support from the community all over the country. But then a month passed by and we were still working, and thought the game was looking good, so yeah let’s just keep on doing what we’re doing. Before that, I always wanted to make a game like Risk Of Rain and Broforce, so we started working. MridulPancholi: When we decided to make games together, we thought of making a game just for practice, and decided that the game should be completed in one month. Where did you get the idea for Alter Army and how different is the finished game from that initial concept?
Mridul Bansal: Alter Armyis a fast paced 2D action platformer game. Let’s start with the basics: What kind of game is Alter Army, how do you play it?
So you can probably imagine how envious I am of Mridul Bansal and Mridul Pancholi, two fifteen-year-olds from India who, under the name Vague Pixels, have just released their first video game, Alter Army, which you can get for PC and Mac on Steam here.
When I was fifteen, and playing arcade games at the local community center, I couldn’t have told you where India was on a map if you gave me a hint.