Co-Optimus: The variety of stages and enemy types certainly allows for a bevy of unique bosses. Which of the big bosses are your favorites?
Christopher: Boss 1, boss 3, and the “joke” final boss are my favorites: Boss 1 (Ron "The Porn King" Bigly) because he was stuck in my head since the second I started drawing the game (though he had blonde hair to start), Boss 3 (Basil the Flaccid) because I love my horror stuff, and Boss 7b because everyone needs a little **** rocket in their lives!
Mission 2 Update Preview
Co-Optimus: On the topic of bosses, when the prison boss is defeated, a previously unseen NPC comes out and finishes him off. Can you explain what’s going on there?
Christopher: That’s a bit of a nod to Dirty Harry having a bad time with partners. If I had [included] cutscenes with the game, it would have explained it with a joke at the end “damn… not another one.” But in the end, I didn’t bother putting those in to let speedrunners have an easier go at it. I may revisit the cut scene idea down the road, but it wasn’t needed. I think she was actually supposed to be the one driving the boat, but then I let the boat just be automated. Not like I can’t add her into the boat in the next update, though! (See the preview screenshot above. - ed.)
Co-Optimus: We know the game has some fun references to classic action movies, but what other types of references did you work in?
Christopher: Insanity’s Blade is the movie playing at the theater at the start of Level 3, and once you go in the house at the end of that stage, the pictures on the wall are the pictures from the original Battle Princess Madelyn. I did not, however, get Finn from Insanity’s Blade into this one.
Co-Optimus: Run-and-guns can vary wildly in difficulty. Would you say this one caters more to mainstream or hardcore players? Can even a casual player make it to the end somehow?
Christopher: It’s pretty much on par with the Sunset Riders arcade game. The Super NES port [of Sunset Riders] is slower and easier, I find, which a lot of people are probably more familiar with. The trick here is to find out which character works best for you (Chuck is best for beginners) and slide, slide, slide! I can do a lot of the levels without getting hit now, even on hard.
Co-Optimus: Deathwish Enforcers features 4-player local co-op. What kind of development challenges resulted from supporting 4 players?
Christopher: It wasn’t important, but I wanted to try it. The usual bugs popped up the same as they would in co-op if I forgot to change a “player1” to a “player2” in the code, etcetera, but the only really tricky bit was level design - not getting other players stuck. In reality, if [the game only supported] two players, it would have been 90% of the same challenges.
Co-Optimus: Now that the game is out in the wild, do you have any plans to release an update with bug fixes or other changes? What about letting players choose button layouts?
Christopher: We’re thinking about a massive update later down the line (because it’ll take me ages to do the art). Yes, I’ll do an alternate button layout for the Nintendo purist (I’m a Sega guy so button layout doesn’t bother me). But we might do additional content down the road. [I’m] revisiting the cutting room floor as well as sequel ideas [that] we may just add to this game instead of doing a full-blown sequel.
Bug fixes will be in the first update which should be coming in the next few weeks. Minor adjustments were made to the game from the players’ initial reactions: flashing of enemies when they are shot, the bottom face button will also act like “Start” to skip some screens, the countdown timer can be sped up by pressing the lower face button, an issue with the Render Texture not clearing on PlayStation is fixed, two minor graphic glitches are fixed, a “Shoot here” sign is added to the first ice cream truck, and some new [voice] samples [have been] added to make a few scenes even funnier.
Co-Optimus: Finally, is there anything you’re proud of about Deathwish Enforcers that we haven’t already touched upon?
Christopher: The sense of humor. While it’s not for everyone, it is for me. I’ve always been a parody kind of guy. I love the old movies that make fun of everything, including themselves. That’s what I did here; I took nothing seriously on the screen. I made it goofy, rude, and exciting – almost like a trip to the toilet after a hefty serving of Taco Bell. I love Mel Brooks’ stuff, the Airplane movies, and old shows like In Living Color: stuff that made me laugh – hard.
The voice acting was probably the most fun part of making the game; we’ll release the takes from recording the voices on YouTube at some point. The best part is probably listening to Ben dying laughing as I switch from one character to the next on the fly… And poor Lina didn’t want me in the room when she was doing her voice acting, HAHA!
Lastly, my team (Monster Bath Games) was bloody perfect! Everyone worked so well together, always on the same page... I’m extremely grateful to all of them for getting to the end of this project!
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Deathwish Enforcers supports 4-player local co-op. Digital versions sell for $22.99 on PlayStation and Switch. We'll have a full co-op review soon!