Discover a unique hybrid of 2D shooting and 360-degree platforming action in Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails, exclusive to Nintendo eShop on Wii U.Months after the disappearance of your beloved Scram Kitty, you finally learn his fate – catnapped by a race of evil robot rodents aboard a huge, Earth-orbiting laboratory! It’s all the fault of the Council of Great Scientists: a recent experiment went south, creating the super-intelligent mice, hell-bent on colonising the planet. And now they’re running amok.
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Scram Kitty, which at this point is only its working title, will be an action-oriented game with fast-paced shooting gameplay and a new take on traditional rail-riding platforming. May 16, 2014 View Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails for Wii U screenshots, pictures, images, wallpapers, photos, pics, artwork, box art and more at IGN.
Just who will save the day?!You, of course! As Scram Kitty’s buddy, jump on your magnetic spinboard, ride the energy rail, and shoot those mice using any and all weapons at your disposal.
It’s a top-down blast-a-thon, where wide-awake, 2D graphics meet modern 3D backgrounds. Rain down undiluted destruction via arcs of bullets, then perform a smash jump, a rather cool move which lets you leap from rail to rail, dodging bullets and pulverising enemies.So, get your trigger finger ready and polish your reflexes. It’s the only way to put those mice on ice before they execute their dastardly plan!. A top-down shooter mixing unique 360-degree gameplay with distinctive 2D and 3D graphics. Employ different strategies and tactics to save as many of the lost cats as you can. Blast to the beat of an original electro synth soundtrack. Go for broke in the one-credit-only Arcade Mode.
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Please visit our for more information.Please make sure you have enough storage to complete the download. Super-intelligent rodents with world domination on their mousy minds have catnapped your beloved Scram Kitty! Take on the role of Buddy, leap onto your spinboard and prepare for action-packed blasting in Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails, coming to Nintendo eShop on on May 15th.We talked to Rhodri Broadbent and Dan Croucher from developer Dakko Dakko to find out about their influences, objectives, and more.Nintendo of Europe: First of all, thanks for joining us today. For our readers who might be coming to this completely fresh, could you explain the game?Dakko Dakko: Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails is an action, platforming, shooter game in which you have to ride on a special magnetic “spinboard” – like a skateboard that sticks to rails – in an epic quest to save all of the cats that have been imprisoned by intelligent space mice.NoE: That’s a pretty unique story, it’s fair to say!DD: Definitely, it’s not going to take itself too seriously!NoE: That’s something of a trademark of yours, as well as quirky visual design.
What were some of your visual influences with Scram Kitty? DD: There’s a retro influence of course, but we’re not directly trying to create a retro game look, so there’s some perspective work and 3D in there too. It’s got the spirit of 16-bit, but it’s more of an homage, what with the sprite art and more modern 3D stuff as well. We wanted the spirit of those sorts of games but made using modern technology; consoles can do more now and we wanted to take advantage of that, so we actually used some stark lighting and interesting visual techniques to make it look arcadey.NoE: Can you sum up the basic gameplay ideas and objectives for us?DD: Each stage has four cats imprisoned in it, and each cat has to be rescued in a different way. So there’s what we call Lazy cats – they hang around in the exit to the stage, so all you need to do is get to the exit to save them. But then there are three other more advanced ways to play each level – Scaredy cats leap from place to place for a short time, so it’s a speed-run approach; Black cats only emerge when you kill the super-powerful Mouse Commander in each stage; and the Lucky cat only comes out when you collect all 100 golden pennies in the stage. So there are elements of games like Super Mario 64 in there, in that you can play the same stage in different ways depending what your objective is, but because all the objectives are ‘live’ all the time you can choose what you’re doing during the level.
Also you can try and do all objectives in one go, which is a risk if you die, or just pick and choose.NoE: It sounds like the difficulty is flexible and adapts to the player’s skill – is it something anyone can play? DD: It definitely is.
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We tried to make it so the Lazy cat, where you just need to get to the exit, is accessible to most players. But the Scaredy cat, for example, is designed for people who want to work out special routes to find shortcuts, or who think, “OK, instead of killing that enemy, I have to navigate its very-difficult attacks quickly, and just get out of there fast,” so that’s a more advanced level for people who really like to speedrun things. Or there’s times that it’s just really dangerous to deviate from the main route and collect all the pennies, so you have to play a whole stage much more carefully, and, of course, sometimes you may be taking different routes to avoid, or find, a tougher enemy. So we made it in such a way that, hopefully, everyone will get different things out of it and then players, as they go through, will become more skilled and will go back to the earlier stages and save the more advanced cats.NoE: What’s your favourite thing about the game?DD: Our favourite thing about it is that everything you do is relative to the rails that you’re riding. So the shots will always be angled based upon the rail that you’re on, meaning you have to position yourself in the room in a vantage point that will give you the most efficient way of taking out enemies.
It takes a bit of a mind shift to get into it, but when you do, every time you get into a new room, you think 'how can I avoid that attack?' Obviously with a traditional shooter you would just fly around wherever you like to position yourself, but here you have set-out routes around stages, so you have to master the jump and really position yourself well to survive.Could you explain a bit more about that jump feature you just mentioned? DD: When the player launches off a rail, they always fly out from the rail, but after a short time they’ll get pulled back toward the position from where they left. So because we’re looking at the game from top-down, you can thrust yourself forwards, but if you don’t find anywhere else to land then you’ll get pulled back to where you came from.Then we have a special move called the Fire Jump – if you press jump a second time when in the air and hold it when landing, you can turn yourself into a flaming ball that spins around, pulling yourself around corners, smashing into enemies, and that sort of thing. It’s like a double-jump, and is both a defensive and offensive weapon, all in one, and once you’ve mastered the feel of it, then you can find some really interesting ways around stages that you wouldn’t have noticed straight away.NoE: So there’s something for novice players and experts as well – you must be excited to see the kind of thing that players will do when they get their hands on the game.DD: Its really interesting watching people going through and learning how to do that stuff.
Using the Fire Jump well on some stages is like getting in a flow, and we’ve added this mode called Challenge where the player has to play through all the stages in as short a time as possible, getting extra time for collecting cats and pennies – that mode is where the pro players will end up, we think, hopefully playing in ways that we never expected.NoE: Scram Kitty is exclusive for Wii U, of course – did you have any particular features of the console or Wii U GamePad in mind when you started development? DD: We targeted the two-screen element because we wanted to have the second screen that shows off the spectator mode, so people in the room get an extra insight as to what’s going on in the game. It’s a slightly more quirky presentation of the game, as opposed to being purely played on the GamePad. Also, we wanted to use the buttons and stick that feel really satisfying.
So it’s played on the GamePad screen primarily, because I like that sort of intimacy that the player gets from that, and also because it lends itself well to that arcadey feel we’re shooting for.NoE: Having a personal screen and a main screen – what sorts of ideas did that give you?DD: I would say the idea that someone else watching it will get a different viewpoint and will see things before the player sees them, and will be encouraged to talk to the player. It’s a social single-player game, really: that’s sort of the main idea of the game with the two-screen thing. Other than that, the game itself is fairly well contained within the GamePad: it’s all about the nice feel of tactile controls and the shooting, really.NoE: So it's something you can play off-TV if you want to.DD: Absolutely, yeah. It’s one of the challenges we had, but it’s designed so you can play it fully off-TV, and then the TV spectator mode is secondary to the gameplay. And it’s hard to look at two screens when you’re playing an intense action game like Scram Kitty so, we acknowledge that and make the second screen for spectators.NoE: Is there anything else you’re doing with Wii U that you’d like to tell our readers about?DD: Just the combination of the two screens, with the audio flipping between the two, so you’ve got a cat that will meow at you from the television for instance.
And of course the fact that the system lets us throw around hundreds of enemies at once, so we can really use the Wii U console’s power to make an old-style arcade game that’s just absolutely rammed with action and missiles flying round the screen, which is basically what we wanted to make.NoE: Sum it up for everyone reading – why should they be excited for Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails?DD: I think because it takes some of the best features of platform games and shooting games, and merges them together in a way we don’t think has been done before. It really harks back to those glory days of the Super Nintendo and brings them up-to-date with a modern console.NoE: Thanks very much for your time!
It isn’t very often that I get to say this about a game, but Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails for Wii U is an amazingly original game in almost every regard. Various elements of the game can be traced back to platformers, puzzle games, and even shoot ’em ups, but the end result is quite unlike anything else I have ever played. Though sheer creativity doesn’t automatically go hand in hand with quality, Scram Kitty manages to deliver both quite effectively.The basic premise of the game is rather simple: evil mice have kidnapped cats and taken them into space, and it is your job to hop aboard an armed rail-riding ship thingy and save them. In terms of the actual game, this plays out as a very interesting twist on classic action platforming concepts. Instead of simply running and jumping between platforms, your character sticks to the rails that run along most walls, which allows you to stick vertically, scale walls and move along ceilings.
This really changes up the normal formula by removing a consistent downward direction, because even though the screen remains oriented the same way, the rail you are jumping from is also your source of gravity, making many jumps a much more complex physics equation than your normal platformer.Along with the platforming elements, there is also plenty of combat and puzzle solving. The latter gameplay element is primarily built around using the proper weapons to destroy particular obstacles or activate switches to open new parts of a level. These mechanics are usually simple enough; however, the relatively non-linear construction of the levels and the fact that the weapons drastically impact how you approach combat does lend a little more complexity to the proceedings.As much as Scram Kitty is about the platforming, the combat is by no means an afterthought and is plenty challenging in its own right.
First, the fact that you are stuck to a rail and can only fire forward makes enemies attacking from the side especially difficult to deal with, often forcing you to jump around enemies or to different surfaces in order to attack. The different weapons, of which there are four, add even more layers to firefights because each has very distinct characteristics, from the way they fire to the types of enemies they can affect. However, aside from your basic blaster, each weapon has to be picked up within the current level you are playing and most levels only feature one of the other weapons.
The final element to the combat is the fact that at times it can almost turn into a bullet hell game as swarms of enemies, some trying to ram you while others take pot shots from afar, crowd the screen. I also found the variety of enemies with different behaviors, forms of attack, and weaknesses to be an impressive surprise. Put together, these elements have allowed for the creation of an immensely creative and unique game, but that has also led to one of my few significant problems with the game. Due to all these ideas, Scram Kitty can be a little difficult to wrap your head around at first. The physics of jumping between and around the rails is a fairly drastic change of pace from most platformers, so even seasoned gamers will take a little while to really figure out how everything works. Thus, it would have been nice if the game took more time to let everything settle in.
The first few levels do focus on individual elements, but the difficulty quickly ramps up and is never anything that I would actually describe as a tutorial. Yeah, I know there is something of a resurgence within the gaming industry in forgoing excessive hand-holding, but I think it is okay to be a little more supportive when so many unfamiliar and unique ideas are at play.Thankfully, if you do happen to start getting a little frustrated, the audio and visual design should at least help keep a smile on your face. Considering the fact this game is called Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails, it should come as no surprise the game is a little weird. Environments are a little bland and rendered with rather simplistic 3D models, but everything else is done with a much more colorful mix of hand drawn and pixelated art work. Your in-game character and enemies look straight out of the SNES era, and there is definitely a certain charm that comes from seeing comically homicidal mice pilot flying saucers and mech suits.
Every once in a while, a beautifully detailed illustration of Scram Kitty will pop up on the TV screen to give hints or provide commentary on the proceedings while the action continues uninterrupted on the GamePad. The music is also decidedly retro with a nice mix of tunes ranging from the synth-heavy to the funky, and while you may not be whistling it while away from the game, if definitely serves to improve the overall experience.If there is one area where some might find another reason to complain, it could be the overall amount of content; however, I think that it will primarily be contingent on how long it takes one to master the mechanics. Each level has four cats to rescue, and kind of like stars in Super Mario 64, unlocking new levels requires certain amounts of cats. Simply reaching the end of a level guarantees one cat, but while that is enough to unlock most levels, actually reaching the final stage will require plenty more.
Levels contain three other cats that can be saved by defeating especially tough enemies, collecting all the coins in a level, and chasing down a “scaredy cat” who tests the speed with which you can accurately navigate sections of each level. Beyond the main game, there is also a challenge mode that runs you through a gauntlet containing every level but time limits that can be expanded by collecting coins or shrunk by hitting obstacles and enemies.Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails is a truly original game that obviously required a great deal of thought, passion and creativity, something I really don’t get to say nearly enough. That being said, I really can’t give it a blanket recommendation.
I can’t help but feel the few faults I could find with Scram Kitty were intentional; developer Dakko Dakko seemed to have been intent on making a unique game with old school sensibilities that was meant to be mastered in spite of its best efforts to provide tough but fair resistance. In this regard, I would say the studio succeeded.Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a.
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