Demonstrating his new sidescrollerHazelnut Hexat the Colorado Vintage Video Game Convention in early October, James - otherwise known as Chunderfins - was intrigued by how some players related to the game. “Of all the people who played the game there, people under 30 would say it reminded them ofCuphead, and people over 30 would say it reminded them ofGalaga,” he said.
Those comparisons to othershoot ‘em up titleswere particularly striking to James - who asked to be referred to by first name only - because so much of his own inspiration forHazelnutcame from the games he grew up playing. Chunderfins’ new game heavily leans on the gameplay, mechanics, and overall feel of a classic arcade cabinet game emulated to console. Game Rant spoke with James about his love for the shoot ‘em up genre, and how he aimed to recreate its best elements inHazelnut Hex.
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Hazelnut Hex Traces its Roots to Classic Shoot ‘em Up Titles
Theinfluence of retro shoot ‘em up gamesonHazelnut Hexis immediately apparent when playing. Taking control of a spoon-riding witch, players are tasked with restoring breakfast to a land where the most important meal of the day has mysteriously disappeared. The player navigates a swath of hand-drawn stages and battles classic bullet-hell enemies that fire increasingly complicated webs of projectiles.
That style is lifted from games James played and loved as a kid. “All throughout high school I would force my friends to play these games with me," he said. “I sucked a lot of hours intothese silly shoot ‘em ups. I’m a big fan of them.”
Specifically, James referenced the 2003 vertical-scrolling shooterCastle Shikigami, which was initially released as an arcade cabinet but later got ported to Playstation 2,PC, and GameCube, among other systems. He also pointed to 1994’sDarius Gaidenand 1998’sGunbird 2as other influences.
James was particularly interested in mimicking the style ofemulated arcade gamesthat he used to play. He feels the draw of some of those titles, such asMetal Slug X, was that they were more focused on providing a fun, replayable experience than some modern games.
“The challenge of the game wasn’t ‘can you beat this level,’ it was more ‘how well can you beat this level.’ You’re not playing a level over and over again to beat it, you’re playing because you’re having a blast.”
When he started developingHazelnut Hex, James aimed to create an experience that would provide that same level of low-stakes fun and draw on hisnostalgia for classic shoot ‘em ups. “My main goal was to make a game that I would want to play,” he said. “Hopefully, there are other folks out there who would want to play a game like this.”
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How Hazelnut Hex Implements the Best Features of Classic Shoot ‘em Ups
One of the central features ofHazelnut Hexthat mirrors the titles it builds upon is its simplicity. Players are given three different projectile types to use, the story is linear, and there are exactly two difficulty modes. These were intentional gameplay decisions, James said.
“Simplicity was definitely done on purpose,” he said. “For one, it’s like a lot of the games I grew up with. TakeMetal Slug X.It’s a game with one ending, zero branching paths, but I’ve played it a billion times.”
James designedHazelnutmuch the same way, both in keeping with classic shoot ‘em ups, but also to keep the scope small. “I actually wanted to finish making this game at some point.” Despite its bullet-hell gameplay,Hazelnutis also fairly forgiving to players. Dying on a stage doesn’t reset progress - rather, the player is prompted with a ‘continue’ screen and a countdown. If the ‘continue’ option is selected, the game picks up right from where it left off.
That was another mechanicinspired byMetal Slug, James said. “That was the first game I’ve played that had that gameplay style. If you died, you could just start back where you left off. I had never played anything like that.”
Hazelnut’sarcade-emulator roots are also apparent in its use of sound design, which features short, punchy lines of dialogue reminiscent of what one might hear emanating out of an arcade cabinet. Some classic arcade emulators also forced players to pretend to insert a coin before continuing the action, which was somethingHazelnutaims to recreate.
“That’s something I did. An instant continue, basically, where it’s like an arcade game but you have infinite quarters.”
Even the game’s high-difficulty setting, ironically called ‘moderate’ mode, is a cheeky nod to classic shooters - specificallyMicrosoft DOS titles likeDoomorWolfenstein 3D. “I used to play a lot of those old MS DOS first-person shooters as a kid, which would always have these really hardcore sounding difficulty modes like ‘nightmare’ or ‘ultra violence’ or ‘I am death incarnate,’” James said. “I wanted to come up with a really lame-sounding hard mode forHazelnut.”
Hazelnut Hexis available now for Nintendo Switch and PC.
