Gang Beasts (prototype) is a silly local multiplayer party game with surly gelatinous characters, brutal mêlée fight sequences, and absurdly hazardous environments.

Report RSS Strategically Engaging with Gang Members

Testing the potential for obstructing, avoiding, and escaping enemy gangs.

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We want the gameplay in Gang Beasts to support different fighting styles and levels of player skill, one of the plans for implementing this is to support players to use the environment to strategically control when they fight specific gang members allowing them to isolate or avoid members of enemy gangs.

In the current builds the only control players have for aggravating enemies is to hit them or be seen by them, if an enemy is aggravated it will attempt to pursue and attack non-enemy gang members in it's immediate proximity, this behaviour could be exploited to stage traps or ambushes if the level design were to support it.

To give players more options for avoiding detection and isolating gang members from the main gang cluster we plan to support multiple pathways through levels including some level design features that let players use the environment to avoid, remove, or isolate gang members:

  • avoid (for example using the rooftops to avoid gangs at street level, walking behind a truck to avoid being seen, jumping through windows to escape enemies, hiding in buildings etc.)
  • remove (for example if an enemy falls from a roof or is hit by a vehicle they will lose health and become unconscious)
  • isolate (for example if an enemy is trapped in a building, or buried under a glut of boxes)

Some of these scenarios will be possible but more difficult to execute in single player mode, the video demonstrates a single player escaping a gang by jumping through a window (the shattering glass effect will be replaced in a later build) and then temporarily obstructing them by holding doors.

We plan to add a taunt system to allow players to explicitly trigger the aggravated enemy behaviours.

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Kamikazi[Uk]
Kamikazi[Uk]

Haha i love this xD. The flailing arms look so funny xD. Great work haha.

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glumjamesbrown Author
glumjamesbrown

Thanks, we want to modify arm movement to more closely approximate a running action but plan to still have a similar level of flapping.

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mrthedarkgames
mrthedarkgames

So your making a game like Godfather,GTA:SA,Saints row 2? But only fighting? No guns?

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glumjamesbrown Author
glumjamesbrown

The gameplay won't be similar to The Godfather, GTA, or Saints Row; the only objective in Gang Beasts is to defeat gangs and gangs bosses.

We plan to make Gang Beasts a multiplayer party fighting game with arcade gameplay that references arcade games like Final Fight, Streets of Rage, and Double Dragon with some mini-games and other game modes.

We are experimenting with non-ballistic weapons (bats, sticks, bars etc.) and ad-hoc/improvised weapons, for example a shards of glass from broken windows can be picked up and used as weapons in the current version of the game (which has a different window breaking implementation to the one shown in the video).

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billhilly
billhilly

wow this looks epic

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Azatoth027
Azatoth027

Hilarious. I think this is gonna be the kind of game my friends and I play at night to relax. Keep up the good work! :)

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conconmadman
conconmadman

IF you decide to Add Player customization. It would be neat to keep these little alpha guys i don't want to see them go, they are so cute. and also do you plan on keeping their drunk fighting style?

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glumjamesbrown Author
glumjamesbrown

Thanks for the suggestion conconmadman, we are reading and discussing the feedback we receive on IndieDB, YouTube, and Facebook. re: gameplay and character design etc. we think there could be a lot of fun in staging implausible or bizarre fights and will try to give players tools for this creating custom gangs and scenarios.

If we are able to implement a functional character customisation feature for the first release I would expect it to be limited (to setting the colour and combination of clothing, facial features, and other assets like tattoos or scars etc.).

We plan to work with other developers/designers on custom characters following the release of the full game, if this works out we could make these additional characters available as level packs with new gangs, levels, and game modes (if there is sufficient interest).

We haven't confirmed the number of gangs that will be playable at launch but we want the game to be playable as all gangs and plan to include some unlockable characters or easter eggs etc. the floppy prototype characters (little alpha guys) could be accessed this way.

I think we would probably make all character clothing / assets etc. part of the character customisation system (excluding bosses), some special items could be reserved for specific achievements, if we can get Gang Beasts on Steam it would be interesting to see what the Workshop community could add to the game.

re: the drunken fighting style we want to have the Plasticine / Play-Doh / Jelly Baby jiggle and inertia that the character demonstrate currently but plan to add some additional fighting moves (headbutting, elbowing, floor kicks, ducking etc.) and a more pronounced running action; we don't expect the fighting to change significantly from what we have currently.

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mechrojay
mechrojay

Unless you're going to be able to update the game every week or 2, I suggest that you tease it, it builds up suspense and anticipation because once you finally release it, $$$$$ for days. It seems that the number of players drop when updates aren't given out weekly or so for early access games but I'm one of the few people that don't mind waiting. Be prepared for a lot of weird/easily angered people on steam but if you guys do early access it anyway or kickstart it, you'll have all of my $$$. Imagining all the things that can happen with the final release has got me thinking of some crazy hilarious ideas. Also,I have a question, will the game be open-world or River City Ransom-ish?

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