Leaping and capturing have been two of the first actions in video video games for the reason that medium’s inception, and but they’ve not often been smooshed collectively — actually not with the hilarious, maddening verve of Shotgun Cop Man. The one different instance that springs to thoughts proper now’s rocket leaping in Quake, and that began life as an exploit, it wasn’t an supposed a part of the sport design.
Not so in Shotgun Cop Man. Taking pictures to leap is the idea this complete sport revolves round, and it’s exploited with nice ruthlessness and wit by DeadToast throughout the degrees obtainable to play within the sport’s demo. The demo is accessible now and will likely be featured in subsequent week’s Steam Subsequent Fest, which runs from Feb. 24 to March 3.
The newest from My Pal Pedro developer DeadToast Leisure is a minimalist 2D platformer a few bald, stick-limbed, slab-chested cop known as… nicely, you’ll be able to guess. Shotgun Cop Man is on a mission to enter hell and arrest Devil. He has a shotgun and a handgun, which you’ll goal with the suitable stick and hearth with the left and proper triggers respectively. Shotgun Cop Man will not be probably the most athletic kind, and might solely waddle left and proper comparatively slowly – but when he fires his gun on the flooring, he flies upward. The handgun produces slightly hop; the shotgun an enormous leap.
It’s a superb thought as it’s, however DeadToast cleverly iterates on it to provide a tricksy-but-exhilarating type of motion. The weapons reload robotically each time Shotgun Cop Man stands on the bottom. You may chain as much as three shotgun blasts, altering your goal as you go to ship our hero on pinwheeling arcs by way of the air. Firing the handgun whereas airborne makes Shotgun Cop Man hover. The most effective tactic for coping with enemies — little purple devils carrying pistols — is normally to launch your self into the air with the shotgun after which blast away with the pistol from midair, gracefully floating by way of their hail of bullets.
The extent design is straightforward, geometric, and devious, studded with deadly buzzsaws. The graphics are useful, however the pleasure is within the sport’s exuberant physics and chaotic however exact carnage — it performs very very similar to a ballistic Tremendous Meat Boy. In a nod to the traditional Nintendo platformer Yoshi’s Island, your coronary heart floats off for those who get hit, and you’ve got an opportunity to recuperate for those who can attain it. You may decide up tasty handgun upgrades too, like a machine pistol or mini-shotgun, that improve each your firepower and your energy of flight.
Shotgun Cop Man rapidly will get very arduous, nevertheless it’s a lot enjoyable to regulate that it’s going to at all times carry you again. Oh, to be Shotgun Cop Man, blasting himself into the sky, crusing elegantly into hell.
Shotgun Cop Man is ready for launch on Nintendo Change and Home windows PC in 2025.
