Just as the gameplay combines two different eras, the storyline features a threat from the past reawakening after hundreds of years. The warlord NEZUMO wants to conquer not only land, but time itself. He and his massive army appear in a small isolated village, and it’s up to KENZO and a highly outnumbered militia to make sure they disappear for good. But no sooner does the battle begin than another dark figure escapes from the void: the demonic MATHONAS. Why here? Why now? It’s all happening due to a power source buried underneath the village. Make sure Kenzo gets to it before any of the monsters or madmen do, and see him power himself up along the way.
Demon Crush gets straight to the action, keeping you in the game at all times. We believe you came here for the rush of a good button-mashing battle, or the thrill of leaping and swinging from castle towers, or the excitement of deflecting bullets and swords alike. We kept our world streamlined – no dialogue during gameplay, no words in cutscenes – so you know you’ll get just enough time to catch your breath between battles before you’re back in the thick of it again!
The controls are simple: Every move in the game can be performed by a single button and a direction. Our “atomic” combat design means that any move can chain off of any other, so you can set up your own combos – maybe even some we haven’t thought of! In Demon Crush, every move alters your timing and positioning, rewarding your for tactical choices, moving around the battle and setting up your next combo, always ready to react when things go sideways.
Demon Crush is not just for the 16-bit crowd and action fans, but also for the various running communities – speed runners, score runners, challenge runners…We love it all! If you’re a casual beat-em-up or platformer player who wants to get in there and brawl with some bad guys and bust out a couple wall-jumps, we got you. If you’re a speed demon, we have in-game time and framerate display options to show off your run. Are you a ladder champ? Demon Crush tracks your score in way that might remind you of Ninja Gaiden’s Karma runs. And of course, the completionists out there can discover secrets and overcome challenge missions to reach the elusive 100% collectibles/unlocks.
Music and gaming go hand in hand. Master the flow of combat set to driving dynamic music reminiscent of classic combat games.
The bosses in Demon Crush are a love letter to classic gaming – each level features a boss with unique attacks and weaknesses designed to test your skills. Use all your equipment and your best techniques to take them down before they put an end to your quest.
Richard has been in game development for nearly twenty years, mostly at Ubisoft and Epic Games. He specializes in designing the feel of melee combat systems, and has a strong interest in all things "look and feel", from character movement to camera placement to toolchain programs. His favorite game development technique is to ask "what does the player want or expect to happen here?"
Deepak Nair is a product and developer manager who has worked on titles and platforms such as Rise of the Tomb Raider, Roblox, Fortnite, and OCP. I love helping all developers and games succeed.
This is Kevin's first foray into video game writing. A longtime musician and playwright, he began his collaboration with Richard several years ago. Their vision has been reinvented, refined and strengthened many times over. Enjoy!
Aaron Sua is an accomplished IT professional with 27 years of experience in designing and building a wide range of solutions, from custom software to advanced machine learning platforms. He is also a subject matter expert in various forms of martial arts, including the Japanese long sword. Aaron’s intense passion for the video game industry is rooted in his upbringing alongside some of the biggest names in the business.
Chris Sabin is a sound designer and music educator, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Music and Sound Design from DigiPen Institute of Technology in 2016. He currently teaches music and sound design at the high school level via the WANIC skill center while also working as a freelance sound designer.
Edgar Steinman has worked on several small and mid-sized indie game projects in the past, and lends a hand with level design.
Elias enjoys designing games for players of all ages. When asked to contribute his programming and narrative design skills to this modern take on a pixel fighter, he jumped at the chance to help bring this game to life.
Sergio Suarez is a pixel illustrator and teacher who loves videogames since he played Super Mario Bros for the first time on his father NES. With more than a decade of experience, Sergio has worked as a freelancer for different projects such as independent videogames, beer labels, videoclips, marketing campaigns and even pixelated character sheets for a D&D campaign with Asmodee. He began his journey as an illustrator and graphic designer who fell in love with animation and started learning about it by himself.
Fran's love for pixels started back in the '90s with Sega Genesis titles such as Sonic, World of Illusion and Acme all-stars. Ever since then he's loved the medium, but it wasn't until around 2010 when he started pushing pixels for fun, and a few years later got his first commission. Since then he's been learning and working as a pixel artist for multiple projects such as Boss Monster: Master of the Dungeon, Argentum Online, and even his own game Elementalist: 0. He focuses on low-res pixel art, including characters, tilesets and environments.
Tadej is an Audio Designer from Vienna, Austria. He has a background in music composition and performance and software/tool development. Tadej worked on some indie games, most recently Moonstone Island (2023).
A self-taught freelancing musician that has been making tunes for 7 years. Contributed music to various small-scale media projects in the past.
Elias here to talk about a really cool thing we’ve implemented for Demon Crush, Ukiyo-e Cutscenes! If you read one of our earlier blog posts about Speaking Without Speaking, you’ll know that during the earliest Read more…
Hi, Demon Crush fans! Elias here to drop another engineering blog post (previously, I wrote about How a Calculator Enables Gameplay). Today, I’ll write about how I compute game intensity to enhance Demon Crush’s game Read more…
Hey all! Chris Sabin chiming in here to talk about sound design for Demon Crush. Let me tell you a little bit about the design behind one of Kenzo’s iconic weapons, the kusarigama. This chain Read more…