Antonblast

Antonblast, stylized in all caps, is a 2024 platform game developed and published by independent video game company Summitsphere. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the full game was released on December 3, 2024, for Microsoft Windows, with a Nintendo Switch version later released on December 13. The story follows the demolitions expert Dynamite Anton, set on recovering his collection of spirits stolen by Satan, and Dynamite Annie, who joins Anton's journey for a chance to get violent.

Antonblast
Developer(s)	Summitsphere
Publisher(s)	Summitsphere
Director(s)	Tony Grayson
Producer(s)	JB Long
Designer(s)	Tony Grayson, JB Long
Programmer(s)	JB Long, Massimo Gauthier, Alex, Tony Grayson
Artist(s)	Max / Ozone, Fallatious, Juniper / Pinpan, Toaddan, Kyoobot, Hari Edween, R__K, Patrikus Droilus, Crisppyboat, Tony Grayson
Writer(s)	Tony Grayson
Composer(s)	Tony Grayson
Engine	GameMaker
Platform(s)	Windows, Nintendo Switch
Release	December 3, 2024 Windows December 3, 2024 Nintendo Switch December 13, 2024
Genre(s)	Platform, action
Mode(s)	Single-player

Plot

Satan is admiring his own "redness" in his magic mirror, until it informs him that a demolition worker named Dynamite Anton has skin more red than his own. Satan jealously demands that his army of moles entice Anton to him so he may steal the latter's color, and they subsequently break into Anton's apartment to steal his prized collection of spirits: prompting a furious Anton and his co-worker Annie to seek out those responsible, with Anton proclaiming his desire to "find out who did this, and blast them into teeny tiny little pieces!". The pair are supported in their quest by casino owner Brulo, who promises to revoke Anton's lifetime ban from his establishment in exchange for ridding it of a Satanic curse.

After finding all of the spirits, the pair reach Satan, who proceeds to drain Anton's colour via a drinking straw, becoming immensely powerful and red. The spirits rejuvenate and transform Anton and Annie into demons, enabling them to defeat Satan and return them both to normal. A petulant Satan bombs the entire world in retaliation as Anton and Annie retreat to their apartment, the only structure left standing, to celebrate their victory.

During the game's credits sequence, it is revealed that Satan has not been heard from since his defeat, though it is immediately clarified that this is likely because nobody has been searching for him, but as the old saying goes, "The devil's in the details".

Gameplay

Dynamite Anton, the player character, uses his "clutch" dash move in "Slowroast Sewer"

Dynamite Anton, the player character, activates the "Happy Hour" phase in the first level: "Boiler City"

Antonblast is an action-platformer. The player takes control of either Dynamite Anton or Dynamite Annie as they rampage through several areas populated by Satan's minions to reclaim Anton's stolen spirits. From Brulo's Casino, which acts as the game's hub world, they can access several different levels, each of which houses a spirit. All of the spirits must be retrieved to challenge Satan and complete the game. There is also secret rooms around the casino with one room referencing The Angry Video Game Nerd.

Anton's primary means of attack is the "Clutch", a dash that destroys enemies and obstacles. Clutching in a rhythm set by a meter enhances the speed of the dash. Pressing the button just before striking an enemy or obstacle sends Anton into a high-speed "Clutch Spin", allowing him to barrel through a series of obstacles without stopping. Pressing the same button in mid-air performs a spinning "Hammer Vault" that allows Anton to bounce off the floor to greater heights. Anton can also roll and slide along the ground, or perform the "Antomic Bomb" to plummet through the air and enter dumpsters.

Populating levels are poker chips of different values, cassette tapes that can be played at Brulo's Casino, spray cans that unlock palette swaps for the player character, and a special collectible unique to the level. The player can spend poker chips at Brulo's Casino on permanent upgrades to their maximum health, temporary power-ups for the next level, or additional cassette tapes and spray cans.

Each level is divided into two layers. Anton can move between layers by jumping on special springs, and use color-coded detonators to remove blocks with a corresponding color and transform the opposite layer. At the climax of each level, the player activates a clock-like detonator that that triggers an event known as "Happy Hour", giving the player a time limit to return to the level's beginning before it explodes. During "Happy Hour", blocks that previously obstructed the player's path become intangible, and vice-versa, thus creating a new route the player has to traverse in order to finish the level. Several levels instead pit the player against a boss; either one of Satan's "Bossbuster" moles, or a larger-scale boss with multiple phases.

Development

Old banner used for Antonblast's Kickstarter campaign and the Steam page in 2023.

Antonblast was designed and self-published by the indie studio Summitsphere (shortened as Summit), mainly by its founder: Tony Grayson: co-coder, main-designer and sole composer for Antonblast and its predecessor. It is a successor to the studio's previous release Antonball Deluxe, a Brick Breaker with controls inspired by those of Mario Bros. It contains remakes of two free games; one for a game jam called GB Jam titled: Antonball (renamed to Antonball Classic) and another: Punchball Antonball, both are on Itch.io. Since Antonball Deluxe proved to be a mild success, Summitsphere started work on their next entry: Antonblast in June 2021, fans of Antonball noticed similarities with Anton and Wario's characteristics and suggested to Summitsphere to make their next Anton game: a Wario Land type game Coincidentally, Grayson had thought about making a Wario Land inspired game starring Anton and a having an antagonist be Satan in 2017 prior Antonball and Antonball Deluxe's conceptualization.

During the early stages of Antonblast's development, Grayson wanted to change Anton's characterization to him "more interesting" and took his characteristics in Antonball on how Anton: "looks really pissed off and wants to punch a hole in his wall" and a "working vibe" with the character which lead to Anton becoming a destruction worker and inspiring the destructive platformer aspect of the game. Antonblast's biggest influence is from the Wario Land series, particularly: Wario Land 4 and Virtual Boy Wario Land, despite Grayson describing himself as "the biggest Wario Land fan", he didn't like the controls of most of the games in the Wario Land series due to "Wario stopping on a dime" and didn't like how Wario Land 4 in particular "forces you to go fast" but Grayson appreciated the controls of Virtual Boy Wario Land for being "really fast" with a "actual dash button". Anton's hammer and the hammer bounce was inspired by Amy Rose's hammer jump ability in Sonic Adventure and thought "why hasn't anyone made a game with that move, it's cool!".

Grayson noticed there weren't that "many destructive platformers." and knew that there was technology to make one, so he looked at two destructive platformers: Broforce and Tembo the Badass Elephant for inspiration, noted his praises and criticisms with the games being excellent but having too much destruction and boring but "did interesting things with the destruction gameplay" respectively that would inspire one of Antonblast's key mechanics of a destructive 2D platformer. Grayson pitched Antonblast to 30 publishers only for all of them to say no due to Antonblast being not safe enough for them, so Grayson looked at Renegade Kid who used to work with publishers at first but decided to go solo for Mutant Mudds and then hold up Kickstarter campaigns for their other games so they would not need a publisher anymore. Although hesitant, with Summit running out of options on getting a good budget on Antonblast and wanting to keep the company afloat, it lead to Antonblast being first revealed on May 17, 2022, alongside a Kickstarter campaign with an accompanying demo featuring the game's first level, Boiler City. In just Summit cites Wario Land, Crash Bandicoot, Metroid Dread, Sonic CD, Cuphead and Shovel Knight as influences.

Within 72 hours, Antonblast reached its crownfunding goal of $75,000 and at the end of the campaign made $144,566. Grayson thanks the Kickstarter campaign for allowing Summitsphere to be saved from being shut down, he commented: "If we did not succeed (in Kickstarter), and we did not get our pay out by June, we would’ve been on the streets. No more Summitsphere." He also noted that some of the 30 developers who rejected Summitsphere at first, emailed back after the campaign's success for them to ask to work with Summitsphere only for Grayson to decline. The graphics are pixel art created from hand-drawn animations, scaled down before being implemented into the game. According to studio head Tony Grayson, he was in talks to feature Crash Bandicoot's original voice actor, Brendan O'Brien, in the game; however, O'Brien died before he could make an appearance in the game. Antonblast was featured at the Guerrilla Collective Showcase 2023, where a new public demo was announced featuring updated mechanics and an additional level, Cinnamon Springs.

In Nintendo's Indie World Showcase on April 17, 2024, a new trailer of Antonblast was showcased which announced that a new demo was releasing on Nintendo Switch the same day featuring a brand new title screen, updated graphics, an updated moveset and the announcement of release date on November 12, 2024, with an update to the previous Antonblast demo on PC shortly after on Summitsphere's social media containing the same contents as the Nintendo Switch port. demo. On October 12, 2024, Summit announced the delay of Antonblast to December 3, 2024, due to the Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene attacks back in September affecting some of Summit's team members ability to work on Antonblast and release the game on time. However, in the same announcement, they announced the release date for a final demo for Antonblast to make up for the delay, titled: "One Blast Demo" to be playable at Steam Next Fest 2024 on October 14, 2024, only on Steam with an overhaul of Boiler City, an additional level, Slowroast Sewer, a level replacing Cinnamon Springs, an opening cut scene, a hub world and two new modes: Time Trial and Combo Chain. On November 12, 2024, Summit announced they were teaming up with Fangamer to release Antonblast physically on Nintendo Switch in sometime 2025. On November 21, 2024, the final trailer of Antonblast premiered on The MIX Fall Showcase 2024.

On November 29, 2024, the Nintendo Switch release of Antonblast was announced to be delayed to an unannounced time period in December 2024 due to the game's Switch performance not meeting Summitsphere and Nintendo's standards. Additionally, it was revealed that Summitsphere will be doing a Twitch livestream in anticipation of Antonblast's release, the same day as its PC release. However, despite this, when Antonblast released on the Nintendo Switch on December 13, many reviews were stating that there were many FPS drops and crashes when they played the game on Switch, Tony later went onto Twitter on December 17 and announced that they submitted a patch to Nintendo that would fix the many bugs and crashes on the Switch version of Antonblast and that they were waiting for Nintendo's approval. Then on December 25th, 8 days after that tweet, Tony excitedly exclaimed that the patch finally got the green light by Nintendo and the bugs were fixed. Less than a month a day apart, Antonblast has fully recouped its costs in development and marketing, turning a profit for Summitsphere.

Reception

Full Game

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
Metacritic	88/100
OpenCritic	85%

Review scores

Publication	Score
Destructoid	10/10
Nintendo Life	8/10

Antonblast has received "universal acclaim" from critics. It has been praised for its detailed Game Boy Advance-inspired visuals and animations, addictive, replayable gameplay, and soundtrack.

Demos

Time Extension writer Jack Yarwood praised the demo, appreciating Antonblast for "fill[ing] the gap" left by the lack of new Wario Land video games. Hardcore Gamer writer Kyle LeClair included Antonblast in his top 10 list of games featured at PAX East 2023, praising it as a "terrific ode" to both the Wario Land series and to the Game Boy Advance in general. He found the platforming enjoyable, calling the mechanic of jumping in and out of the background "clever", and also calling the destruction in the game "wildly-fun". Kotaku writer Kenneth Shepard included it in his list of indie games releasing in 2023 that he wanted to showcase, praising its pixel art, action, and premise.