Voxatron is a voxel-based Indie arena shooter being developed by one man who goes by the name of “Lexaloffle” and his one-man company “Lexaloffle Games”.
We don’t always write about Indie games here at VGB, but sometimes a game sticks out as so freakin’ cool you simply can’t ignore informing others about it! That is definitely the sentiment I got when I saw the clips for this game.
In development and this year for PC, Mac and Linux, Voxatron is similar to games like Smash TV or Robotron, or even Geometry Wars, except in this game you are a clear humanoid who must shoot to destroy everything in his path. The game has an isometric camera, and your character has the ability to jump and hide behind objects to escape the attacking enemies as you make your way through the varied levels shooting at everything that moves. Even objects in the environment can be shot apart.
“Apart” being the keyword. By far the most interesting aspect of Voxatron is where the title gets it’s name: voxels. Like a much lower-res version of 3D Dot Game Heroes graphics-wise, Voxatron’s entire world is made up of little blocks called voxels, and when enemies or your character die, they EXPLODE into hundreds of pieces. Awesome.
To quote the developer:
“Voxatron is an arena shooter that takes place in a world made of voxels (little cubes, kind of). Everything in the game is displayed in a virtual 128x128x64 voxel display, including the menus and player inventory. If you look closely, you can sometimes see the inventory (score/life/ammo) casting a shadow on some of the objects on the ground.
I’ve been working on voxel rendering and modeling tools for a long time now, with the ultimate goal of making a large explore-y adventure game. About half a year ago it fused with work I was doing on arena shooters for Conflux, and this is the result.
It’s quite a simple game at heart — mostly just Robotron set in a 3D destructible world with goofy creatures. I’m unsure how major the implications of destructibility will be for gameplay, but it sure is fun to blast away pieces of wall. I’ve also added an experimental wall-building pickup you can use to construct barriers to hide from scary monsters.
The game takes place in a small set of arenas. Some of them feature rooms with set action pieces, somewhere between Knightlore and Smash TV. This is some of the original adventure based design sneaking back in, and an excuse to create thematic environments.”
The game will be ready sometime this year, with plans for a demo before then.
Here is a look at this awesome Indie-gem in action.
Key features include:
What do you think of the game? Are you as excited as I am for it?