Nuclear Throne
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''Nuclear Throne'' is a
bullet hell , also known as manic shooter, is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video games with large amounts of projectiles the player is required to dodge. Introduced in 1993 with '' Batsugun'' and initially limited to vertically scrolling shooters, bullet ...
roguelike Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a style of role-playing game traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most ro ...
video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
developed by
Vlambeer Vlambeer is a Dutch independent video game developer based in Utrecht. Founded in 2010, the studio was composed of Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman. The studio is known for the games ''Super Crate Box'' (2010), ''Serious Sam: The Random Encount ...
. Set in a
post-apocalypse Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction are genres of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomi ...
, players are tasked with killing enemies by using various weapons and characters' special abilities to progress through levels and eventually reach the titular Nuclear Throne. The game is widely known for its steep difficulty curve and fast-paced gameplay. Early prototypes of the game were distributed through
Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...
's early access program in 2013. ''Nuclear Throne'' was released for
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
,
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,
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,
PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...
, and
PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, then in other international territories on February 22, 2012, and was produced ...
in December 2015, for
Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...
in March 2019, and for
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in September 2021.


Gameplay

''Nuclear Throne'' is a
top-down Top-down may refer to: Arts and entertainment * "Top Down", a 2007 song by Swizz Beatz * "Top Down", a song by Lil Yachty from ''Lil Boat 3'' * "Top Down", a song by Fifth Harmony from ''Reflection'' * "Topdown", a song by Channel Tres from the ...
shooter
roguelike Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a style of role-playing game traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most ro ...
game with
bullet hell , also known as manic shooter, is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video games with large amounts of projectiles the player is required to dodge. Introduced in 1993 with '' Batsugun'' and initially limited to vertically scrolling shooters, bullet ...
elements. The game consists of two main game modes:
single-player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the gameplay. Video games in general can feature several game modes, including single-player modes designed to be played by a single player in add ...
, and a local cooperative gameplay mode. There are also daily and weekly challenge modes, allowing the player to compete against others via the
Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...
platform for the best score (determined by the number of kills in the playthrough), on the same set of randomly generated levels. The player controls one of a total of 12 characters, 10 of which must be unlocked through play. Two additional secret characters can only be played under special circumstances during play. Each character has an ability unique to them, adding an additional element to the gameplay. These individual abilities allow for different play-styles, improving the variety and replay value of the game. Secondary sprites or skins can be acquired for the characters played if the player completes special or secret tasks. The player progresses through the linear level structure until level 7–3, where the final
boss Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, ...
, the Nuclear Throne, has to be defeated. After this, the player may choose to loop to the beginning of the game again with a greatly increased difficulty. The user may continue looping indefinitely until death. The game resets upon death. Except for special weapons acquired in a hidden level and "crowns" retained until after defeating the final boss, anything acquired in one playthrough does not carry over to the next. The game has a leveling system, where the player gains experience in the form of radiation pellets, or "rads", dropped by enemies, that allow them to get different mutations and choose what would benefit the character the most out of a selection of four, randomly selected mutations. Upon reaching level 10, the player can choose a character-specific "ultra-mutation". The player starts with the basic revolver, but they may upgrade by taking weapons from red chests and collect more ammunition from yellow chests. The player can have two weapons equipped at any time, such as a shovel and an assault rifle. The weapons available to the player get increasingly advanced and powerful as the enemies become increasingly difficult and numerous. After looping the game, special "golden" and "ultra" weapons become available. Aside from certain melee weapons, weapons consume one of five different ammo types (bullet, energy, shell, bolt, and explosive).


Plot

''Nuclear Throne'' has a minimal plot. The game's community has formed theories about ''Nuclear Thrones story by analyzing the game's world, environment details and loading tips. Most canon information shared by the developers was revealed during development livestreams. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, characters called mutants have gathered together with the aim of travelling throughout the world to reach the Nuclear Throne. The developers theorize each new run is a new alternate universe, where everybody is alive and they have yet to decide who will attempt to complete the task.


Development

Vlambeer's Jan Willem Nijman and
Rami Ismail Rami Ismail (born 30 October 1988) is a Dutch-Egyptian independent video game developer. He is further known for being a spokesperson within the video game industry on the topics of diversity and reaching out to game developers from developing ...
served as the game's designer and producer, respectively, and shared the development work. Paul Veer, who had previously animated Vlambeer's ''
Super Crate Box ''Super Crate Box'' is a shoot 'em up and indie game by Vlambeer. It was first released for Microsoft Windows on 22 October 2010, and was followed with ports to Mac OS X on 26 November 2010, to iOS on 4 January 2012, and to PlayStation Vita on ...
'', returned to contribute art to ''Nuclear Throne''. The game's promotional art was drawn by Justin Chan, an art student hired on the basis of his fan art for early releases of the game. ''Nuclear Throne'' music was composed by
Jukio Kallio Jukio Kallio is a Finnish video game composer known for creating the soundtracks to '' Minit'', ''Fall Guys'', ''Nuclear Throne'' and ''Luftrausers''. He started making music in 2011 and created chiptune music on his own. He then met game develop ...
, who had composed for several previous Vlambeer titles. A friend of Kallio's, Joonas Turner, worked on the sound effect design. Jan Willem Nijman and Rami Ismael were invited by Notch, to participate in a 48-hour charity game jam called Mojam Humble in 2013. During this game jam the two created a game called '' Wasteland Kings'' which later became the prototype to ''Nuclear Throne''. At the beginning of development, ''Nuclear Throne'' was created in Game Maker 7 before transitioning to Game Maker Studio to develop the rest of the product, a decision the team later found cumbersome. Nuclear Throne's development was secondary to their other project at the time, Luftrausers, and the team often found themselves progressively adding new features before considering taking the game seriously as a commercial option. ''Nuclear Throne'' development took 2.5 years, beginning in February 2013 and releasing into
Steam Early Access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release development cycles, such as pre-alph ...
that same year. During PAX Prime 2013 Vlambeer showed off the prototype for ''Nuclear Throne'', known as ''Wasteland Kings'', with five of the twelve characters playable in the prototype. After the release of ''Nuclear Throne'' to early access, this prototype was made for public download. It was revealed by Rami Ismail that the name change was due primarily to a trademark issue with
InXile Entertainment inXile Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Tustin, California. Specializing in role-playing video games, inXile was founded in 2002 by Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo. The studio ...
. Following the Mojam tradition of livestreaming the development process, the team decided to continue livestreaming their progress for ''Nuclear Throne'' which was a development process they later dubbed “Performative Game Development”. The livestreams offered opportunities for the developers to interact directly with their community and increase their game's exposure to new audiences. Rami noticed a significant boost in exposure when other live streamers on the Twitch platform were interacting with and playing ''Nuclear Throne''. For example, they had a significant sales spike when Northernlion, a content creator, played the game on stream. Vlambeer announced PlayStation 4 and Vita releases at the December 2015 PlayStation Experience keynote. The aspect ratio of ''Nuclear Throne'' is permanently set to 4:3 instead of the industry standard 16:9. This was done to create an even balance of visual threats onscreen. Vlambeer generates their random levels using “workers”. This programming system creates tiles and walls beginning from the character with a random amount of distance it can cover. Once the walker reaches the end of its randomized distance it will place an item or object of interest such as an ammo crate or explosive barrel. Each region within the game has its own sets of random generation restrictions creating distinct differences between the progressive areas.


Release

In January 2016, Vlambeer teamed up with the
subscription box Subscription boxes are a recurring delivery of niche products as part of a marketing strategy and a method of product distribution. Subscription boxes are used by subscription-based ecommerce businesses, referred to as "subcom" for short, which ...
company,
IndieBox IndieBox was a monthly independent video games (indie game) subscription box service. Working directly with the indie game developers, IndieBox designs and manufactures boxed collector's edition physical releases of games that are typically only a ...
, to offer a physical release of ''Nuclear Throne''. This limited collector's edition included a themed USB drive with
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-free game file, soundtrack, instruction manual,
Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...
key, and various custom-designed collectibles.


Reception

''Nuclear Throne'' has received positive reviews from critics, with the game's PS4 version scoring 82/100 on
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, and the Windows version 89/100. Alexander Chatziioannou of ''Hardcore Gamer'' gave the game a 4 out of 5 saying, "''Nuclear Throne'' is impeccably presented and tightly designed. There is enough variety in characters, upgrades and weapons to ensure that playthroughs never get repetitive and its visceral combat is a joy in itself." Jordan Devore from ''
Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017 and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. Histor ...
'' rated the game an 8/10 saying, "it's one of the hardest, most rewarding games I've ever played. But as satisfying as it can eventually become, I think it is far too demanding for its own good." ''
IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...
'' awarded it a score of 9.0 out of 10, saying "''Nuclear Throne'' is an enjoyably tough run-and-gun with tons of energy and variety to justify hours and hours of replays."


References


External links

* {{Portal bar, Video games 2015 video games Bullet hell video games Early access video games Fantasy video games GameMaker games Indie games Linux games Multiplayer and single-player video games MacOS games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games PlayStation Vita games Roguelike video games Top-down video games Twin-stick shooters Video games developed in the Netherlands Video games scored by Jukio Kallio Video games using procedural generation Vlambeer games Windows games Xbox One games