Pure mayhem and destruction are concepts that developer Luke Schneider knows very well. After serving as the lead tech designer for the brilliant shooter Red Faction: Guerilla, a game all about blowing up everything, Schneider founded his own indie gaming company, Radiangames. Now, Radiangames is here with its own take on interactive chaos with the upcoming and appropriately named Instruments of Destruction, which is headed to Steam Early Access later this year.
Instruments of Destruction is a sandbox-style, physics-based vehicular action game that tasks players with knocking down everything in satisfying ways. Part Blast Corps, part Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and part explosive wonderland, Instruments of Destruction lets players use creativity to be destructive.
Announced in a short but sweet trailer, Instruments of Destruction looks to give players ultimate freedom in creating the titular instruments. The game allows players to build vehicular monstrosities bristling with wrecking balls, flamethrowers, buzzsaws and more in an attempt to knock down buildings with ease.
Every object in the world is tied into Instruments of Destruction's impressive physics engine. This allows players to wreak havoc throughout each level, exploding structures into pixels as the buildings are ripped apart by customized machinery. Each part of the level geometry has its own weight and presence allowing for a domino-like effect when concrete starts flying apart, with buildings crashing into others and collapsing everywhere. The destruction is instantly reminiscent of Red Faction: Guerilla's physics engine, but this time from an overhead perspective.
To cause this mayhem, players will have to get creative. The game is built around experimentation and clever thinking. Players will have to build the vehicles from a plethora of components, adding wheels and superstructures to support the more dangerous parts like the aforementioned giant saws. Sometimes it may take a particular setup to effectively take down a building. Luckily, Instruments of Destruction's accessible mechanics allow for the kind of trial and error that makes players feel successful and smart when things all come together. Instruments of Destruction seems to be a technological and gameplay evolution from experiences like the excellent medieval vehicle builder Besiege, albeit bringing things into modern day and turning the destruction up to the highest levels.
The sandbox nature of Instruments of Destruction is the perfect setting for its chaos-based gameplay, but the title also has a full campaign as well. Levels will task players with crumbling a variety of structures, and they will also include bonus objectives to complete. These extra challenges will not only test players' vehicles designs, but will also add replayability.
As players unlock new parts, more and more options become available for building the perfect wrecking machine. Players may start out with simple splitters and regular wheels, but over time they can unlock advanced moving joints and heavy-duty wheels that allow for more mobility and power. Instruments of Destruction allows players to improve upon a great idea with better parts, or scrap the whole vehicle and start over once a new more powerful tool becomes available, once again allowing for creativity and experimentation.
A great video game sandbox often allows players freedom to create fun with the tools it provides, and Instruments of Destruction aims to do just that. By providing an intuitive and fun vehicle building system, Instruments of Destruction makes its gameplay accessible, and that looks to be the perfect move. Fans of physics-based mayhem and vehicle-building strategy should keep an eye out for this adventure in demolition, and start planning the best designs for ultimate destruction right now.
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