Blast Brigade vs. the Evil Legion of Dr. Cread News

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous launches on September 2nd

Those who love old-school isometric CRPGs probably heard about Pathfinder: Kingmaker. And you will be delighted to know that Owlcat Games is currently finishing the development of their next game, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, an indirect sequel to Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

The new game takes place after the events of the first one, in the kingdom of Mendev, to the North of the Stolen Lands. Besieged by demonic armies, Mendev and its Queen Galfrey have been fighting in numerous crusades for almost a century without much success.

Will you be the one to turn the tide? Gather allies, gain incredible powers and stop the demonic invasion… or bring doom upon Golarion! The choice is yours.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous will become available on September 2, 2021. Click on the button below to visit our page and add the new game to your wishlist. Mythic powers await you!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1184370/Pathfinder_Wrath_of_the_Righteous/

Bosses and Mobs: Part II

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a cyborg!?

Today’s topic is indeed the airborne opponents you will encounter in Blast Brigade. Flying enemies do not only have speed on their side but also immense maneuverability – they can attack you from various angles, making the fights even more dynamic.

Most common of these folks are mutant flies that adapted to various biomes across the island. Be it jungles or snowy wastes – these nasty insects will locate you and try to feed on you. Take extra care with the mother bugs – upon elimination they shoot out their offspring at you!

However, the true danger of the airspace above Dr. Cread’s island is the elusive Icarus. This menacing sky hunter possesses a humanoid metal body sporting the blood red color as well as a pair of enormous wings. Don’t spend too much time in awe though as they are as marvelous as they are deadly.

Icarus, whose name takes inspiration from the ancient Greek myth, is a boss shrouded in mystery. It is rumored that he is one of Seven Savage Cyborgs – an elite taskforce personally “manufactured” by Dr. Cread from his nemeses and people of interest. Most of these bosses share the signature visual style that the evil genius marked them with and Icarus is no exception.

Out of the Seven, little to nothing is known about Icarus. Some say that he used to be an American pilot or maybe even an astronaut. Others speculate that he studied with Cread in elementary school, earning future villain’s wrath for some misdoing… and paying for it dearly many years later. Whatever the case, out of Seven Cyborgs, Icarus is the one who gets the most unpleasant or routine tasks. Tough luck!

But honestly we don’t believe in luck – reliable information is much more important. Our intel suggests that Icarus can be found guarding some prototype in the Drilling Station – a location packed with Dr. Cread’s Legion forces. As one of the Legion’s commanders Icarus boasts airtight security, so even getting to him will prove to be a challenge. A challenge you will surely overcome, given the personnel and resources available.

And that’s it for now! Next week we’ll go into a far more toxic territory… so prepare your eyes AND your noses. Stay tuned!

Blast Brigade Team

Bosses & Mobs: Part I

Our new series of articles will focus on some of the first bosses and mobs you will encounter when exploring the tainted paradise island in Blast Brigade. Under today’s spotlight are the main types of Dr. Cread’s forces – robots and drones. These minions are obedient, easy to control and to replace – a perfect match for the devious plans of a crooked genius.

Drones work both as reconnaissance and guard units, securing important routes and locations throughout the island. What they lack in power, they make up for in speed and maneuverability becoming a bigger threat when encountered in a group. These little but tireless laborers act as Cread’s eyes and ears, allowing Doctor to watch over his domain from the safety of the HQ.

What poses real danger is the dark red robot serving as the second boss of the game - CHM-7 Siegebot. This large bipedal mech warrior is an elite guardian unit boasting not only tight defenses but also overwhelming firepower capabilities. After all, it launches chains of grenades and almost literally spits fire!

We are sure Jeff would appreciate all the explosions happening if they were not so accurately directed at him. But fret not – every door has its key! Our intel suggests that this boss has two weak points that can be exploited to gain tactical advantage. What these points are remains a mystery but apparently one of them can be accessed only after fulfilling a special condition.

Speaking of keys, if you are following our social media, you could witness a scene with two guards in quite a pickle. They seem to have placed their access card to an evil lair. Looks like CHM-7 Siegebot has some connection to it but to make sure of it – you’ll need to pinpoint its location.

The report suggests that this heavily armored guardian unit can be encountered in the jungle biome. There, it participates in the occupation of an abandoned tree village located in the center of Great Tangle. All that’s left – is to head there, learn the truth and take the enemy down.

That’s it for today! Next time we will delve into another biome and a different boss’s territory. Stay tuned and have a blast!

Blast Brigade Team

PAX East: Early Access launching in September!

Phew, that was exciting! We’ve just concluded our PAX East panel and revealed loads of juicy Blast Brigade information, behind the scenes footage, gameplay details, and the big one: Early Access in Steam is launching this September!

Let’s start off with the brand-new trailer we demonstrated at PAX. Grab your popcorn!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Blast Brigade is still a little while away from release, and we thank you for your patience and support, while we blast through the final stages of development. That said, we really can’t wait for you to get your hands on it as soon as possible.

That’s why we’re launching Blast Brigade in Early Access on Steam this September.There will be a large area of Dr. Cread’s island for you to explore and battle through with even more content available later.

Not only will this give you an idea of what the final game will be like, but it also is a unique opportunity for us to connect with you, our amazing player community. We want to know if we’re hitting all the right marks, from core features to the control schemes, storyline, difficulty curve and overall gameplay flow.

Your experience and feedback will help us bring Blast Brigade to life in the best way possible!

This evil genius patiently waits for your arrival (early concept art).

There were many more interesting segments showcased at our PAX Online East panel, including deeper dives into cinematics, the making of music for the game, and world building. We will be sharing all of them with you across Steam and other social media platforms in the coming weeks, so make sure to follow Blast Brigade and stay tuned!

- Overly-excited Blast Brigade Team

Blast Brigade: the creation of visual style

Recently, the art director of Blast Brigade, Yulia Krasheninnikova, took part in an interview with App2Top, where she shared an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at how the game’s visual style was created. Today we would like to provide some highlights from this interview for you to get a better idea about the metroidvania aspect of Blast Brigade.

Working on the environment

The visual style of the project inherited a lot from its mobile predecessor Bombastic Brothers for several reasons. The main one was that the core mechanics of Bombastic were popular among the community, and the team wanted to further develop the idea. With this decision came an opportunity to expand on already successful concepts and take them even further.

How it started

Thus, using the existing assets from "Bombastic", we collected several fake shots, atmospheric and densely filled. After receiving the first results, we turned to programmers to find a technical pipeline that would allow us to implement our plans in the required quality. The previous mobile-based solution did not work as we needed much more advanced tools for editing levels and individual assets.

Moving to the new solution did not sort out all our problems, so the decision was made to simplify the graphics of the environment in favor of geometric styling, with clean silhouettes and a minimum of rounded shapes. With it being the next logical step, the idea of detailed rendering was abandoned in favor of working with blur, gradients, light effects and a small number of texture brushes.

Concept of the first biome we developed

The cartoon Klaus, released a few months earlier, only reinforced our belief in this style and became one of the main sources of inspiration for landscapes in Blast Brigade. Other reference titles, such as Samurai Jack, Carmen Sandiego, The Owl House impacted the atmosphere of 2D cartoons that we wanted to bring across.

Speaking of references, the preliminary stage of development - when choosing a setting - a mood board was prepared with graphics from the games that we wanted to focus on. Given the relation to Bombastic Brothers, there were of course titles like Streets of Rage, Broforce, Mercenary Kings and Metal Slug, while Ori, Monster Boy and Hollow Knight were the main landmarks for us in terms of genre.

Atmospheric concept in the new pipeline

As is the case with metroidvania titles, when working with the color palette, it was important to convey the atmosphere via the principles of warm-cold lighting, airy perspective and reflective light. In order not to lose units against the background of the colorful environment, all the characters and monsters were made in a slightly different style: having a uniform black outline and filled according to the cell-shading principle.

The colour palettes of different biomes

Working on Jeff

Each character has their own “passport” with a general description of the biography, traits and in-game abilities. Before starting the design for each hero, NPC, monster or boss, we first collected separate mood boards with references, while having discussions on the game mechanics linked to each character.

The main character (Jeff) is essentially a young version of himself from Bombastic Brothers. The idea was to portray him as a young, not fully hardened but still a goofy fan of explosions.

Experiments with proportions and detalization

The first version of his design for Blast Brigade looked rather aggressive and brutal, but later we decided to change his appearance towards a more charismatic and stylish guy who can express a much richer range of emotions than “I'm angry and brutal, this is where my personality ends”.

The main idea of the team was to convey the straightforward and purposeful character of the hero, and at the same time to show that he is not sly and witty but rather extremely direct. Subsequently, this opened up more opportunities for the introduction of comedic moments in dialogues and even partially influenced some of the storylines. Oh yes, there are multiple storylines to follow, though it’s a subject for another time.

Cool, cooler, coolest

And that’s it for today! Next time we will tell you even more about those who inhabit the charming vivid world of Blast Brigade, so follow our game and stay tuned!

Blast Brigade Team