When We Made... Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider
Game designer and artist Danilo Dias spoke to Vince Pavey about JoyMasher’s Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider, a retro- style action adventure game about a robot rejecting the oppressive programming of its society and going on a hardcore quest for justice
is loosely inspired by absolute classics like Capcom’s Mega Man X3 and SEGA’s Shinobi, and its visual style has taken on a healthy dash of inspiration from the Super Nintendo hidden
V
engeful Guardian: Moonrider is a fast- paced precision action platform game from studio JoyMasher. Its gameplay
gem Hagane for good measure. JoyMasher has brought appreciative gamers
retro-inspired hits like Oniken, Odallus and Blazing Chrome since it was founded in 2012. Its games have painted a picture of a small but tenacious studio from Brazil that appreciates the legacy of the industry and isn’t entirely comfortable with sitting still and doing the same thing for multiple games in a row.
After two games in the 8-bit NES-style, and one that instead went for the 16-bit Mega Drive look, the studio could’ve gone in any direction it wanted. What actually happened next came down to a mix of an artist recognising and furthering their own self-improvement, an adoration for a particular style of video game art, and a little bit of sacrifice - and as for what led them to doing another 16-bit Mega Drive style game, well …
“I think I got better at pixel art!” laughs Danilo Dias, the game designer and artist on all of JoyMasher’s projects. “I was very confident
52 | MCV/DEVELOP February 2023
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
