Anton's ready to have a blast.
"It's Happy Hour!"
ANTONBLAST is an upcoming 2D Platformer developed by Summitsphere for Steam and Nintendo Switch. It is currently scheduled for a November 12, 2024 release.
The story follows Antonball Deluxe protagonist Dynamite Anton, an alcoholic destruction worker who prides himself on his collection of vintage alcoholic spirits. One day Satan steals said collection, sending an absolutely LIVID Anton on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Joined by his crazy co-worker Dynamite Annie and armed with a large hammer, Anton sets out across the Backburner Peninsula where he destroys everything in his path in order to reclaim his stolen booze, teach Satan a lesson, and blow up Hell itself.
Taking influence from a wide variety of action platformers, the gameplay structure of ANTONBLAST is most similar to the Wario Land series; specifically Wario Land 4. Upon reaching the end of a level, Anton arms an explosive and must make a mad dash back to the start of the level before the entire stage goes boom. Anton is equipped with a variety of demolition-themed moves, including a "clutch" hammer dash and a devastating hammer bounce, both of which he'll need to annihilate the massive variety of obstacles in his way — anything from knocking out small girders to leveling entire buildings.
The game was funded through a Kickstarter campaign
, earning 144,741 USD (almost twice the initial funding goal of $75,000). The Kickstarter included a demo for one of the early levels that has since been delisted. A second demo, The Dynamite Demo, was released in June 2023 on Steam; an updated version of the demo was released in October 2023 on Steam and April 2024 on Nintendo Switch.
Trailers: Kickstarter Announcement Trailer, "Life with Anton" Dynamite Demo Trailer, "Meet n Beat the Bossbusters" Trailer, Release Date Trailer
This game contains examples of:
- Advancing Wall of Doom: The Bossbusters' blimp serves as one during Boiler City's Happy Hour, plowing through terrain and dropping Anton to a penalty area if he can't outrun it.
- The Alcoholic: Anton is a drunkard who will literally destroy Hell itself to get his stolen alcohol back.
- Antepiece: In Boiler City, a secret area hidden above Brulo's elevator (labeled the Smoke Spot) has a series of floating crates leading to a large poker chip. Later in the level, another series of crates leads to a slot machine on the top of a building, and the sewers have a sequence that leads to a Heartbeet crate and chips. Carefully placing your jumps to get to these items are meant to prepare the player for Happy Hour, which has an even longer series of crates for Anton to hop along while outrunning the Bossbusters' blimp.
- Anthropomorphic Food: The Spirits are depicted as having faces with big beards just like Anton himself. In some stages they're replaced with boba tea cups with a face that resembles Annie's.
- Arc Symbol: Various different interactable objects (Such as the pipes in Boiler City, and the falling totems in Sinnamon Springs) have a pentagram embedded on them, which makes sense, as the game's Big Bad is Satan.
- Art Evolution: Anton and the rest of his world have undergone a redesign between Antonball Deluxe and this game, which makes them look less Wario-like, instead taking on a more distinctive, cartoony look.
- Ax-Crazy: Anton is happy to destroy everything in his path in his quest to retrieve his Spirits collection. Annie similarly joins in, despite having no real stake in Anton’s quest, simply for the chance to wreak havoc.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: Happy Hour is accompanied by Outta My Way ...It's Happy Hour!, a triumphant rock track.
- The Bartender: The long-suffering Brulo, who has revoked Anton’s lifetime ban from his casino on the condition he rids it of its hellspawn infestation.
- Big Bad: Satan stealing Anton’s booze is what kicks off and motivates the plot.
- Big Ball of Violence: As shown in a YouTube Short, at one point in her boss fight, Smallbuster rebuilds her mecha. But all the rebuilding is obscured by a smoke cloud.
- Blood Knight: Annie joins in on Anton’s quest, despite the two not getting along, simply for the sake of the destruction and mayhem she'd get to cause.
- Bucket Helmet:
- One of the Bossbusters, Tallbuster, wears a bucket on his head. Unusually, said bucket is worn right-way-up, unlike most instances of this trope.
- Smallbuster wears a mug as a helmet due to her small size.
- Cartoon Bomb: A bomb with a face is present in the title of the game. Ballbuster also throws cartoon bombs at you during his boss fight.
- Character Catchphrase: Anton has "IT'S HAPPY HOUR!", said at the start of Happy Hour. It's also associated with him in-universe, as in the Living with Anton trailer, Anton mentions children bugging him into saying the line.
- Collapsing Lair: Each level ends with a timed sequence labeled as a Happy Hour. Your goal is to escape the level before the explosives you just armed blow the place to bits.
- Crate Expectations: The game is full of crates, including the classic wooden kind, stronger steel ones, pulsating green explosive ones, entire freaking prefabs...
- Crosshair Aware: The spots where Tallbuster's bombs and Smallbuster's missiles will land during their boss fights are marked with red crosshairs.
- Cute and Psycho: Annie is cute as a button and only joins Anton so she can engage in violence.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Enemies explode when defeated.
- The Devil Is a Loser: Satan steals Anton’s prized spirits collection because he was insecure about Anton having redder skin than him and assumed that his spirits were the key to that.
- Downloadable Content: The creators have teased in the kickstarter about two DLC campaigns, one starring Danton and Nina, and one starring Brulo. They will be part of the game if the kickstarter earns 175 thousand, and 200 thousand dollars respectively.
- Down the Drain: Boiler City has sections of levels that take place in the sewers.
- Everything Breaks: The game allows you to destroy everything in your path. Boxes? Smash them. Girders? Bring them down. Entire buildings? Level them.
- Excuse Plot: Satan stole your booze. Destroy everything in your path to get it back.
- Face Plant: Weaponized as Anton's Antomic Bomb move. Triggering it after jumping makes him drop face-first like a Ground Pound, and landing on an explosive crate with it turns the move into an Action Bomb.
- Flaming Devil: Satan is described as flamboyant and steals Anton’s alcohol because he wants a better tan.
- Floating Limbs: The Jewel Ghoul, a boss showcased in the release date trailer, is a purple giant who lacks arms, and instead has floating hands that they punch you with.
- Follow the Money: Poker chips often indicate where to go. Occasionally there are even chips shaped in an arrow formation.
- Gelatinous Trampoline: Cinnamon Springs has round jelly of various colors that bounce the player around.
- Glass Cannon: Anton is capable of insane levels of destruction, but can only take three hits before being tossed back to a checkpoint.
- Glass Smack and Slide: When Anton's health reaches 0, Anton is slammed against the screen.
- Gotta Catch Them All: The goal of each level is to find one of Anton’s stolen prized spirits.
- Hailfire Peaks:
- Boiler City is an urban landscape typical of a Gateless Ghetto level, but also contains the sewers of a Down the Drain level.
- The first half of Cinnamon Springs contains the candy motif of a Level Ate (of the 'Level entirely made of candy' variety) and the lava and rocks of a Lethal Lava Land. The second half instead mixes Level Ate with a Wutai landscape.
- Hearts Are Health: Heart-shaped beetroots (called Heartbeets) found in crates, serve as the way to restore health. When grabbed, they get sent to the top left of the screen where they get turned into playing cards. Bosses instead have cards with Ballbuster faces on them.
- Hell: The eventual goal of the game is to reach Heck and blow it off the map.
- Horns of Barbarism: One of the bosses, Maulbuster, wears a viking helmet.
- Humongous-Headed Hammer: Anton carries a hammer with the head more than half the size of himself.
- Idiosyncratic Combo Levels: Combo names start at 10 with "Yeah!" "Ahhh!!" or "Okay!" and end with "Eateateat!!!" at 100.
- Inspiration Nod: One of the major inspirations for the game is Crash Bandicoot, and it shows in the bustable crates, tornado transformation, the voice-over in the title screen mimicking that of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, and even the game's ads using the same font featured in the logo of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. Graffiti of Crash also appears on one of the buildings in Boiler City.
- Joke of the Butt: Several of Satan's pre-level taunt sprites in the demo have his comically-oversized rear displayed prominently.
- Made of Explodium: Just about everything explodes on account of the game’s focus on wreaking havoc and wrecking everything in your path.
- Mole Miner: The Ballbusters from Antonball return to make a nusiance of themselves alongside their deadlier leaders, the Bossbusters.
- Non-Human Head: The Jewel Ghoul, one of the bosses showcased in the release date trailer, is a giant with a purple gem for a head that you need to attack to damage them. They also have a partner with a cyan-colored gem for a head.
- Nominal Hero: Both protagonists are only fighting Satan for purely selfish reasons: Anton to get his spirits back, Annie for the chance to wreak havoc.
- Plunger Detonator: Pressing down large color-coded plunger detonators will blow up blocks with matching color. There's also one at the end of each level that starts Happy Hour.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Bossbusters are one of these, being a bunch of goofy moles who work for Satan.
- Remixed Level: Cinnamon Springs is the same place as Fudge Mountain from Antonball Deluxe, but instead of snow and slippery terrain, the area was turned into a fiery pit of crags and lava. Though it could also be a neighboring area.
- Rewarding Vandalism: Breaking wooden crates and colorful bricks yields chips and temporarily increase combo meter. Most other breakable objects just increase combo meter.
- Rolling Attack: Crouching while moving downhill causes the player to roll, destroying enemies and breakable objects that get in the way.
- Running Gag: The game’s social medias love posting an art piece of Anton and Peppino Spaghetti messily french kissing whenever the latter’s game is brought up.
- Satan: The Big Bad is Satan himself.
- Screen Shake: Destroying objects causes screen to shake. The screen similarly also shakes constantly during Happy Hour.
- Shout-Out: Several in the Dynamite Demo.
- One of the combo rankings is "Play It Loud", a clear reference to Nintendo's Play It Loud campaign in the mid-to-late '90s.
- Another combo ranking is "Aaahh!!!", which is done in the same style as the logo of Aaahh!!! Real Monsters.
- Annie's pose when jumping from the foreground and background is the same pose Sonic makes on the Sonic Adventure box-art.
- Thanks to the Life with Anton trailer, it is confirmed that he is raising a pink hedgehog girl, a clear reference to Amy Rose.
- Several songs on the soundtrack have the same "Title...Purpose" naming scheme as the stage tracks for Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2.
- Speed Echoes: Characters leave trails when going fast.
- Springs, Springs Everywhere: Manually activated springboards transport Anton between the foreground and background layer.
- Stealth Pun: Anton is an alcoholic who uses a large hammer as a weapon. In other words, he’s hammered the entire game.
- Stock Sound Effect: Stock cartoon sound effects are used a lot.
- Stock explosion sounds are heard whenever anything explodes, in other words, very often.
- A stock casino sound effect is heard whenever collected poker chips get added to your total.
- When the player holds the down button while spinning mid-air, the stock slowmotion spin sound effect starts to play.
- Suspiciously Cracked Wall: If a surface is cracked, it usually means it can be broken.
- Tattooed Crook: Brawlbuster, one of the bosses, has a heart tattoo on his shoulder and is, like the other moles, working for the literal devil.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Tallbuster's boss fight has him throw Cartoon Bombs at you from his hot tub as shown in the Bossbuster reveal livestream.
- Title Scream:
- The logo for Summitsphere in both the startup splash screen and ads for the game is accompanied by a raspy voice screaming "SUMMIT!", referencing American TV spots for Sega games in the '90s.
- The game itself has a deep-voiced narrator yell "Anton...BLAST!" on the title screen, accompanied by the logo falling in and harming Anton.
- Top-Heavy Guy: Being a demolition worker who wields a giant hammer, Anton naturally has a broader torso and bigger arms in comparison to his smaller, skinnier legs.
- Trash the Set: The objective of the game's non-boss levels is to hit a detonator to blow up the level and escape before the bombs go off.
- Traveling-Pipe Bulge: When Anton enters a pipe, a bulge in the pipe is clearly seen.
- Variable Mix: When entering Boiler City sewers, the soundtrack becomes more subdued.
- Video Game Dashing: Anton's default method of attack and to move around quickly is dashing. Unique in that if you keep tapping the dash button in rhythm, it gets progressively faster. The developers have compared it to Crash Team Racing boost mechanics.
- Video Game Sliding: Crouching during a dash will make the player slide for a short while. Longer if there is no headroom to stand up.
- Vocal Evolution: In the game's trailers, Anton sounds noticeably raspier than in the trailers for Antonball Deluxe.
- Waddling Head: One of the enemy types is a turnip with stubby limbs and a beak.
- Water-Geyser Volley: In Cinnamon Springs, there are water geysers that can be used to travel upwards. Some of them are initially blocked by destructible objects.
- Wretched Hive: Boiler City is described as seedy and certainly looks run down.
- Wutai: The second half of Cinnamon Springs is a feudal Japan-themed village… which seemingly exists in the same time period as Boiler City.
