Two 15-year-olds made this promising 2D action platformer

News
By published

Try the demo for yourself.

Alter Army is a fast-paced 2D action platformer currently in development at Vague Pixels, a small indie studio based in Jaipur, India. How small is the studio? Well, Vague Pixels has two members: Mridul Pancholi and Mridul Bansal. They are both 15 years old. 

Pancholi handles the art and programming, and Bansal specializes in fundamental game design and marketing. They started work on Alter Army as an exercise in videogame development, but as the scope of the game expanded and they received more and more feedback, they decided to take it beyond just a pet project. 

After barely making it through Steam Greenlight, Alter Army is now slated to officially release later this year. In the meantime, you can try it for yourself via the free demo available on GameJolt. 

"The universe is dying and you are one of the last few trying to take control of the last resources," Vague Pixels says of the game's setting. "Fight your way through hundreds of monsters and bosses in different biomes using your weaponry and collect special crystals to live a few more decades."

Alter Army grades your performance at the end of each level. Killing enemies and avoiding damage ups your score, as will destroying hidden crystals. The environment itself is also partially destructible. However, Vague Pixels says the key to success is playing aggressively. 

"The [higher your combo], the faster you heal, the harder you [hit] and [the faster] you move," the game's Steam description reads, adding that the four playable characters feature unique fighting styles. 

It's crazy to think that two young teens were able to successfully develop and release a game that looks this promising on Steam. Vague Pixels says they're targeting a December release date and expect Alter Army to cost around $10 USD. 

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Staff writer, GamesRadar

Austin freelanced for PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and has been a full-time writer at PC Gamer's sister publication GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a staff writer is just a cover-up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news, the occasional feature, and as much Genshin Impact as he can get away with.