Howdy! I’m Brian, senior gameplay programmer at Shiny Shoe, and I’m here to introduce a new clan in Monster Train 2 - the Lazarus League.
The Lazarus League is a group of mad scientists and their creations. Themed around horror and the macabre, we drew our inspirations from a variety of films and books: Frankenstein, Nosferatu, Reanimator, Alien, and a bunch of others have their DNA running through the League.
Orechi, first champion of the Lazarus League clan
This is immediately exemplified by their Champion, Orechi. He serves as the head of the Lazarus League, the scientist at the center of every dark experiment and twisted creation.
He’s a clear nod to Dr. Frankenstein, though in my head he’s closer to the one found in Young Frankenstein (it’s pronounced Franken-steen). During gameplay, he excels at bringing back the dead and brewing dangerous serums.
Erratic Assistant Unit, Lazarus League clan
Within the labs of the League, a host of different Assistants lend their expertise. These are the grunts of the group, and are often the subject of experimentation themselves. Some have weapons stitched to their body, which can then be… reappropriated by another unit. Some have been made unstable through some rather iffy science and are in danger of coming undone.
Erratic Assistant was inspired by Edward Scissor Hands, having sharp hands attached to her body and behaving a little off-kilter. Thematically she serves as the group’s ace surgeon, able to perform delicate amputations and not-so-delicate ones as the situation calls for it. Gameplay-wise, she has starter equipment that gives her an attack boost. Should she lose those pointy fingers, another unit can take them up to get the added attack.
Overworked Assistant, Lazarus League clan
Visually, Overworked Assistant is a nod to the BBC adaptation of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I just really wanted a two-headed character in the clan. A frustrated worker bee who is the subject of experiments as often as he is conducting them, years in the lab have made him increasingly unstable. This is reflected in his gameplay mechanic of gradually becoming more unstable as you cast more spells in the room he’s in.
(Fun fact: early in design we discussed using the merchant cats as our assistants, but I decided against subjecting those cuties to the horrors of the League.)
Hydra Armed Horror Monstrosity, Lazarus League clan
Hulking Mass Monstrosity, Lazarus League clan
The clan’s experiments have led to grotesque Monstrosities. These are the more outlandish units, with deformed features and anatomy that doesn’t quite work. But they’re also the powerhouses.
Hydra Armed Horror gains more attacks for each piece of equipment fed to it - if you’ve got the cards to spare, it can be quite the heavy hitter. It’s the clan’s take on a nightmarish tentacle monster, but with muscley arms instead. Hulking Mass gains armor each time it is reanimated from the dead, making it a doubly (or triply) effective front-liner.
Lazarus League equipment card: Organ Harvester
Mechanically, the Lazarus League is a “high risk, high reward” clan. Many of their cards center around purposefully letting units die to gain some reward. New statuses help facilitate this - Reanimate immediately revives a unit upon death. If you’re careful, even a sacrificed unit can survive to continue the fight. The Unstable status will cause units to explode on death. Combine the two, and you can create combos where units die, explode, die again, explode, die for the third time … life in a mad scientist’s lab is tough.
Lazarus League spell card: Tome of Horrors
Every clan has a Tome card, a powerful card that can inform the strategy of a run. The League has Tome of Horrors, which grants a massive amount of Unstable. Playing it on an enemy can be good, but it can also combine really well with the Overworked Assistant for massive, repeated explosions. It’s also gives some fun Evil Dead 3 vibes.
Lazarus League spell card: Brain Transfer
And as for Brain Transfer, it’s good for sac’ing your underperforming workers to embolden your sturdier units. It’s one of the first cards I designed, a reference to similar operations found in several classic works, and it helped inform how far to push the horror motifs.
Lazarus League spell card: Secret Ingredient
There are other new gameplay mechanics underpinning the Lazarus League, but I don’t want to spoil all the surprises just yet. You’ll have to come check them out when the game launches on May 21st! In the meantime, thanks so much for supporting Monster Train 2 and us folks at Shiny Shoe!
From ShinyCami, Community Manager at Shiny Shoe: Thank you so much for supporting the Shiny Shoe team and for your interest in Monster Train 2! If you would like to see the Lazarus League in action, watch the dev stream live on Twitch on Friday, April 18th, at 12:00 PM PST here. Have questions? Chat with the devs on our Shiny Shoe Discord server.