Indie 2D Shooter Butcher Is a Love Letter to the 90s

[Steven Bogos]

Indie 2D Shooter Butcher Is a Love Letter to the 90s

Butcher draws inspiration from those 2D shoot-em-ups of the 90s, like Duke Nukem and Contra.

Do you like side-scrolling shoot-em-ups like Contra and Duke Nukem? Do you wish video game and movie violence was still as gratuitous as it was in the 90s? Well then, Butcher may be the game for you. The latest from indie dev Transhuman Design is out now [http://store.steampowered.com/app/474210/] on Steam, and features a pixelated 2D artstyle that is brutal, and awesome.

"The easiest mode is 'HARD'! Butcher is a fast-paced 2D shooter game and a blood-soaked love letter to the early 90s. As a cyborg programmed to eradicate the last remains of humanity, your sole purpose is to well... annihilate anything that moves," wrote the developer in a Press Release.

Think Doom and Quake but in 2D, right down to the chainsaw and the ultra-violent uncompromising carnage. Check out the video to the right to see it in action, and some screenshots below:

[gallery=6547]

The game will set you back a mere $10 and is available on PC, Mac and Linux.

Source: Butcher [http://store.steampowered.com/app/474210/]

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[Saelune]

Dunno if its fun or not, but I think most of the charm of the games it supposedly is a love letter to is lost in 2D.

Plus there is a reason Duke Nukem 3D is the most popular in the series, not 1 or 2.

 

[Zhukov]

I prefer my pixel art with a few more pixels.

That just looks like a muddy mess.

 

[Hawki]

"Ah, fresh meat!"

...oh wait, wrong game.

 

[Callate]

I have to confess that I'm more than ready for video games to get past their death metal phase and the assumption that "gratuitously hard" is a feature rather than a flaw.

It's fine to have a few Dark Soulses and Super Meat Boys, but pinning the player to re-doing the same three minutes of gameplay fifty times for the honor of proceeding to the next three minutes of game play is not what I would call a graceful work-to-reward curve, and I think our own work-to-reward curve ought to stop rewarding designers who seek to gratify masochism and ridiculous amounts of free time.

 

[josemlopes]

I like the look but it could really use a bit more pixels, everything is so tiny that a character only having 8 pixels of height doesnt sound like a good idea.

Other then that visually it reminds me of Quake

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Kind of reminds me of Abuse, but with tiny, tiny sprites.

Or maybe Broforce, but without the self-awareness and sense of humor.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Huh, looks a lot like ...

Kind of reminds me of Abuse, but with tiny, tiny sprites.

Dammit!

But yeah, Abuse:

Spoiler

Disclaimer: DO NOT google 'Abuse'.

 

[Vern]

Kind of reminds me of Abuse

Thank you, that was the first game I thought of when the video started but I couldn't remember the name. At least I don't have to spend 30 minutes clumsily googling to find the name now, so thanks again. Haven't played it in years, but it was fun.

And yeah, I'll agree with the lack of pixels. It looks nothing like Contra, or Abuse, or even Duke Nukem 1 or 2. It's a muddy mess. Even Broforce, which is basically a mess of pixels has a good art direction that make all the masses of pixels stand out individually.

They really need to up the graphics, I'm not a graphics nut by any means, but if you're going to do pixel art, I would love to see more games do SNES pixel art quality. Sometimes I wonder if the people making these games ever actually played an NES or SNES game. "GLOBS OF PIXELS = OLDSKOOL!"

 

[omega 616]

This far down and nobody has mentioned the smash hit series, hotline Miami? Ok, it's a different plane and it's a little more bold but essentially the same game.

Weird how nobody got their underwear in a knot over hotline but they are over this one? Though admittedly, it is a little dark and hard to see.

 

[Vern]

This far down and nobody has mentioned the smash hit series, hotline Miami? Ok, it's a different plane and it's a little more bold but essentially the same game.

Weird how nobody got their underwear in a knot over hotline but they are over this one? Though admittedly, it is a little dark and hard to see.

Well that's exactly why I'm ok with hotline. It uses masses of pixels, but they chose a style "neon" that works. There's little to no confusion of what's what. You can easily differentiate the player from the background and the enemies. This game just looks like brown, black, red, redblack, brownred, blackred. Gameplay will tell it apart, but the gameplay looks to be like Broforce, or Axiom Verge, but they chose colors and styles that stand out, so you can actually tell what is happening.