Contract is a 2.5D co-op beat 'em up where you take on the role of angry writing utensils (pencil, pen, marker, and paintbrush) with a mission to defeat evil contracts and other corporate goons. Players will experience a goofy world full of paper puns and chaotic combat as they play through a campaign and different extra modes.
Who are Paperboys Games / how did you meet?
Paperboy Games is a group of 4 students at UCSD. They met at their university's game development club, but it wasn't until a last minute game jam project in January 2021 that they actually began working together.
Where did the idea for the game came from?
The idea behind the game originated at a game jam with the theme I did not sign up for this, which our team took literally by making our character a pencil and have him fight evil contracts. The initial project was so fun to work on that we decided to expand on it over the next year and a half.
What beat'em up games inspired you?
Contract Killer was inspired by classic arcade beat 'em ups like Streets of Rage and Battle toads, which can be seen with our pixel art direction and CRT filter, but also more modern entries such as Castle Crashers. We should also mention that our art style was inspired by Paper Mario's 2.5D aesthetic.
What's the duration of the campaign?
The campaign should be around 4 hours. Players will experience three unique areas with 3 levels each as well as a boss level once an area has been completed. Each area also features its own miniboss.
Any additional modes?
Outside of the campaign, players can play our horde or PvP modes. In horde, players will face endless waves of enemies that are encountered throughout the campaign. In PvP, players can fight one another in different arenas.
For each member of the dev team what's your favorite Beat'em up and why?
Aiden's favorite beat 'em up is Castle Crashers because of its over the top slapstick humor and chaotic moment to moment gameplay.
Alex's favorite is Streets of Rage 4 due to how it really modernized the beat 'em up genre while also keeping it classic, which was our goal with Contract Killer.
Leon's favorite is Streets of Rage 4 because of how it retained its arcade roots while modernizing gameplay, characters, and world.
Matthew's favorite is Castle Crashers for its tight controls, challenging air combos, and fun secrets.
This update includes the ability to scrap multiple salvaged items at once. Press and hold the salvage button to go into multi-salvage mode. Check boxes will appear next to all the items in the salvage and cargo lists. Check or uncheck the boxes with the A button, then press the X button to scrap all the selected items.
Other changes:
Fixed: Some items were showing at the incorrect rarity in the salvage menu
Changed the name of the Plasma Frag to the Plasma Field Dispersal Grenade
PFDG time between shots and reload times increased
Plasma Cannon now correctly leaves behind a plasma field on impact
Due to the current world situation, delays have occurred in some aspects of the game. The game on the technical side is at 90% completion. The final scene is already finished. The game will be out soon, but with a small delay. There is a sale right now, the price just before release will be higher. The first 2 scenes have also undergone changes. New characters have been added, the behavior of the monsters has been corrected.
Furthermore, if you're a Soulsborne/Souls-like fan we would very much appreciate to get your detailed input on what you like about these types of games (souls-like's) so we can ensure we're appealing to your tastes.