Lethal Wedding Demo · published
Hey backers,
We’re down to the final days of the campaign, and it’s the perfect time to highlight some of the talent behind the game. Today, we’re featuring two retro scene veterans who have been lending us a hand.
If you backed ZPF, one of our most successful Kickstarter campaigns to date, or played Super XYX, you already know Gryzor’s incredible range as a pixel artist. He has a unique talent for switching styles, going from the heavy, futuristic fantasy-horror of ZPF to the vibrant space skies of Super XYX. Now, he is bringing that creative energy to Lethal Wedding with a massive homage to a classic that heavily inspired us: Zombies Ate My Neighbors.
To show you what he put together for the game, we have a mix of final game art and gameplay, a scrapped concept from the cutting room floor, and a full interview. Let’s get right into it:
Gryzor completely designed and animated our terrifying new Chainsaw Clown, alongside a dedicated tribute stage called the Chainsaw Hedgemaze Mayhem level. Check out the video below to see the stage in action:
⚠️ Please Note: This footage is a super duper work in progress! Things are still being tweaked, tuned, and polished, but we couldn't wait to give you a sneak peek.
ALSO, did you catch those limbs flying across the screen? 👀 We've been paying close attention to your comments throughout the campaign, and we're absolutely here for maximum gibs!
Gryzor didn't stop at the Hedgemaze. He also cooked up a brand-new crossover enemy called the Clown Zombie, which perfectly blends the campy horror vibes of ZAMN with the chaotic energy of Lethal Wedding.
Unfortunately, this specific enemy didn't make the final roster. Even though he won’t be chasing you down in the full game, we absolutely love how the artwork turned out and wanted to share this prototype stage design with you guys. Check it out below:
We sat down with the man behind the madness to talk about his transition from ZPF to the campy horror world of Lethal Wedding:
When the Lethal Wedding team brought you on to design these custom elite enemies, what was your first reaction?
Gryzor: “I’m a big fan of Zombies Ate My Neighbors, so I was happy to help. Also they didn’t want an extreme quantity of new stuff or additional micromanaging or anything, so that was a relief coming off a big project.”
You’ve worked on everything from ZPF to Super XYX. What’s the creative shift like when you pivot from sci-fi and fantasy shmups to animating for a project like Lethal Wedding?
Gryzor: “It’s mostly about the difference between animating/drawing things that kind of actually exist versus fantasy things that can just look like and be whatever, they don’t have to adhere to reality, One reason walk cycles are so difficult (despite having done a good 5 or so at this point) is that it’s something you see all day every day, it’s very easy to tell when it looks wrong.”
In a fast-paced 2D shmup, if enemies look too different, the screen becomes unreadable chaos. What visual anchors did you use to ensure that the assets you made seamlessly matched the pre-existing art style established by the internal team?
Gryzor: “I was very impressed with the existing art, another reason I was glad to help. The first step for me is just taking an existing palette and going from there. Like, putting what I’m doing in a little sandbox in my editor with all the existing doodads to make sure it matches OK as I’m doing it.”
In a 2D shmup, animation frames tell the whole story. How did you approach the frame-by-frame animation of the Chainsaw Clown and the Zombie Clown?
Gryzor: “First, I was worried about having way more angles to do. That’s always an issue with a top down game, since your character will always be at some angle and requiring different perspectives. It’s really not that bad if you can get away with mirroring half the rotation angles on the x axis. You *wouldn’t* do that if you specifically need to maintain the asymmetrical details of a character; but you generally need to conserve memory and frames on the Genesis/MD, so not an issue here. The hardest part is just getting the initial look of the movement right, from there I can just make each frame match in all iterations and then make overall refinements..”
Every pixel artist has a favorite element to draw, whether it's fabric, metal, or gore. Between the Chainsaw Clown and the Zombie Clown, which sprite gave you the most creative satisfaction to paint from scratch?
Gryzor: “What was satisfying was giving it all a more sinister edge. The team clearly had a pretty solid handle on the humor side of things; but I feel for a certain type of enemy like the chainsaw clown, you need to dial up the terror a bit more. I also oddly enjoy drawing zombies too despite that never being my main horror niche. You can make them all kinds of crazy colors splatting neon bright goo everywhere and have them in the most absurd states of physical distress but it’s all par for the course,. I think it’s a crime creatively to make them boring”
We can't thank Gryzor enough for unleashing his horror style on our game. Watch your backs when that chainsaw clown hits your screen!
Our next collaborator is a true industry legend. Simon Butler has been working on in-spec games since the 1980s and has a mind-blowing track record of over 300 individual titles. His resume spans iconic studios like Ocean, Team 17, Vicarious Visions, Probe, Magnetic Fields, and Atari.
If you’ve ever played classic Worms, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Leisure Suit Larry, or SimCity, you’ve seen his work. To kick things off, check out a look at an updated tileset and in-game mockup Simon put together for the project:
Updated Strip Club tileset by Simon.
Strip Club mockup using the updated tileset by Simon.
We had the absolute privilege of sitting down with Simon to talk about his history, his design philosophy, and his experience collaborating on this project. Here is our full interview:
Simon, with a resume spanning Ocean to Street Fighter Alpha 3, you've worked on "in-spec" games since the 80s. What about Lethal Wedding's style drew you to this project?
Simon: “I love old-school games. I would never go back and play any of the games that I encountered in the last forty years, but if new retro titles appear, then I am always interested. Lethal Wedding ticked all the right boxes for me. It evoked great memories of hours of Genesis and SNES gaming. It has the right look, the right colours. It just put a smile on my face.”
When you're building spaces that naturally need a lot of environmental clutter, how do you balance that grit with player readability so people don't lose track of the action?
Simon: “Having come through the 8-bit era, where tilesets were incredibly limited, you learn that less is more.
You also learn how to utilise what little memory you have to the utmost. There were never rules passed down, because there was nobody before my generation of pixel pushers. We were the ones who created the rules, who built the foundation that the industry stands on today. The rules were simple. You haven’t got much, so you can do much, so do your best. Clarity is, was, and always will be king.”
Given your history with classic production pipelines, how has your toolset evolved for this game? Are you approaching these backgrounds with the same fundamental grid-and-tile philosophies that powered the classic arcade era?
Simon: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and if I’m being totally honest, there aren’t that many new things you can do when pushing pixels. Yes, you can use a stylus instead of a mouse, but I prefer not to. You can use layers when creating sprites and/or backgrounds. This is not for me. The arena for pixel art has not changed that much from when I first started. We’ve got more colours, and we can have more frames of animation at bigger sizes, but that’s pretty much it. I haven’t changed my art software for over 25 years and doubt I will before I hang up my mouse. Pixel art is an unchangeable medium, like sculpture, I suppose. Perhaps that’s why I love it so.”
To avoid that 'Frankenstein effect' of a patchwork art style, how do you discipline yourself to adapt your own signature line-work so the backgrounds and characters actually feel like they were drawn by the same hand?
Simon: “If I come late to a project, as I did here, I look at the graphics that already exist, and while I don’t attempt to copy them identically, I tweak my own style, if I have such a thing, to get as close to the original as possible. To date, I think I’ve been pretty successful. I’ve never had a client say my work didn’t fit.”
When you're staring down a massive asset list, what's your actual day-to-day workflow? How do you know when a piece is good enough to check off so you can just move on to the next object?
Simon: “I draw things. When I’m happy with them, and that means they look like the item on the graphics list, I move on to the next object. If they meet with approval from the client, happy day! As I said before, Pixel art, at least for me, is a very simple craft. I know what I can and cannot do, and I reckon I’m pretty good within those parameters.”
A massive thank you to Simon for taking the time to chat with us and for bringing decades of legendary old-school expertise to the team!
We are so close to unlocking our next major stretch goal: The Fatman and Team Fat Deluxe CD! If you love 16-bit sound design, chiptunes, or just want an amazing physical soundtrack to add to your collection, check out the gorgeous mockup we have lined up:
If you haven’t locked in your pledge yet, or if you know a friend who lives for 16-bit run-and-gun action, please pass the invitation along this weekend! Help us seal the deal and check this reward off the registry before the big day.
Until death do us part,
The Mega Cat Studios Team