Enforcer : 出る釘は打たれる。
Download Here
Enforcer : The Nail That Sticks Out Gets Hammered Down (Enforcer : 出る釘は打たれる。or just Enforcer) is probably the most abstract game prototype I have completed to date. A while ago I got around to playing a very old, but very awesome, cult PS1 game called LSD: Dream Emulator. The concept behind this game (just walk around and do nothing while the game world around you changes randomly and unpredictably) - as well as the games visuals - really left a very strong impression. It was this strong impression that inspired me to create Enforcer.
In Enforcer, the player assumes the role of a conformist gone rogue, who must take down the evil corporate banking robot in order to regain his individuality and to restore social justice. This basically boils down to navigating the player character around the level, shooting the giant banker robot and avoiding getting hit by the evil money tokens that he shoots out whenever the player gets too close. The banker robot has 1000000000 life points, where as the player only has 100. So the player must approach and attack the banker robot with caution. However, as with most things in life, even if the odds are stacked against you, there is always a way to win the game...
Apart from the minor political commentary (it’s 2013 and there is a global financial crisis going on…), I like to think of Enforcer as a humorous mash up of all of the old-skool 3D game aesthetics that I fondly remember from my childhood.
Enforcer was developed using XNA 4.0 and programmed in C#. One of the new graphics features I experimented with was the CRT monitor scan-line effect (as well as the more subtle fish-eye lens distortion effect). This effect was implemented quite easily in the main post processing pixel shader. The other graphic effects include the classic plasma wave effect and planar shadow projections. I also developed a TV noise shader post processing effect - for use in the transitions between different game states. You can check out a lot of cool examples of such shader effects here. Additionally, the city buildings that make up the level scenery were generated in Blender using the rather nifty Suicidator City Generator.
Special thanks goes to James “Axyss” Webb for writing the music score for Enforcer.
You can watch the trailer for Enforcer below: