Antraxx is an upcoming multiplayer isometric, arcade-style, mech battle shooter. Mixing classic pixel art with a highly stylized modern twist using dynamic lighting, shadows, physics, positional audio and more. I have been fangirling over this project since I stumbled over it on some website, and I thought I would seek out some more info.

I recently got in touch with Antraxx and they happily accepted to do a bit of a Gamer Laughs style interview, for a bit more of an idea of what Antraxx is, it’s essentially the most ambitious and creative looking pixel art, indie game I have seen since Broforce.

Its graphic are smooth and clear and the game play should theoretically be addictive and competitive.   It’s even going to support a custom map system allowing players to put together their own maps, not to mention a high level or customization to your mechs, allowing you to swap out your own parts and color them as you wish, this is pretty insane considering each mech has 64 parts (8 parts x 8 angles).

Walking animation for legs need 8 frames, 64 walking images, each gun has 4 animation frames to shoot, meaning 32 images for 1 gun. We have 2 guns per mech, and then we also have all parts in all angles that have malfunctions. Meaning destroyed parts. So that’s another 64, that’s a total of 256 graphical image parts, and little birdy also told me they are possibly planning on creating camouflage and sharkteeth edits.

Anyway I got in contact with Leendert Oomen who is the Founder & Lead Designer of Antraxx who thankfully accepted my proposition for a bit of a Q&A (Question and Answer) that I devised, should be interesting.

Q: How many members do you have in your team?
A: In reality we’re a two man team. We do have had a few freelance pixel artists on the way to help us out here and there. Which has been a great experience also.

Q: How long have you been working on Antraxx?
A: It all started in summer 2011… So about 5 years now with on and off development due to life, relationships, financial situations, moving houses, real life jobs and all that.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge you have had to overcome while working on Antraxx so far?
A: Not giving up. You will have your ups and you will have your downs. In all cases of life. Not just game development. For me that has been one of the biggest challenges. Mainly because it costs a lot of time and having a busy day job will not make it any easier.

Q: Is there any games that have taken inspiration from?
A: We really started out of nowhere. I guess I could say Habbo Hotel but that really wouldn’t make any sense looking at our game and project. Truth is somewhere we have been inspired by the concept of isometric art and the social aspect of that game, as to art, we love many pixel art games. Metal Slug is definitely one of my favorites.

Q: Is there any reason you used pixel art or old school graphics for this project?
A:  Because I love the crisp and perfectionism. We could have done 3D and we would have had a lot more art done. Truth is I rarely ever like 3D isometric games. I’m still guessing it’s the pixel art.

Q: What’s your favorite ice cream flavor and why?
A: This has got to be the hardest questions I have had to answer in an interview so far… lemon ice cream?

Q: If you released a collector’s edition with the full release of the game what would be in the box?
A: We’d put our 3D printed mech in there, a card with a code to redeem special items, a super sick t-shirt, a poster and a book of the history of Antraxx.

Q: What’s the funniest bug or glitch you have found so far while in working on Antraxx or are there any funny stories during the development of Antraxx you could care to share?
A:  It’s kind of unfortunate that Sam is really skilled because we haven’t seen many yet.  I’m sure Sam has seen more though. He knows I’m a perfectionist so if something doesn’t function right he knows I’d comment on it. He hates that. The funniest thing for me is probably the fact that you can fall off tiles into black space. I keep doing it and it just won’t stop falling at this point. It’s not a real glitch though. Who knows? Maybe in our next interview when the whole world knows about the game and how mad crazy the developers are!

And there you have it; I am definitely going to get myself a collector’s edition with the way this sounds. I would seriously recommend heading to www.antraxx.com to pick up a beta key, this is the last month to do so.

Also I hate to say this but who in their right mind likes “Lemon ice cream” come on everyone knows Vanilla is the best!