How many great video games can you name that do not have at least one memorable villain  ? Oh, these insidious antagonists – there is no escaping the love/hate relationship we all share with them!

In Redneck Ed we take in-game opponents very seriously: while progressing through the game’s 15 levels, you are going to run into and get closely acquainted with bizarre, insane, and ravenous monstrosities from outer space. Defeating most of them will be no easy task! 

Not to give away the many pleasant encounters that await you in Redneck Ed, but why not give yourself an edge over the competition and learn a few fun facts about your foes in advance?

In this post, we are going to disclose details regarding some of the otherworldly horrors’ backgrounds, the ideas that inspired them into existence, the difficulties we ran into when designing these lovely creatures, as well as give a few occasional pointers on what sort of combos they use, and how to deal with them, so... Buckle up!

WARNING: if discussing elements of the as-of-yet unreleased game isn’t your cup of tea, we advise you to add Redneck Ed: Astro Monsters Show to your wishlist on Steam  or collection on Itch and wait for the official release!

WOODCUTTER JOE

Ed is just a regular guy from the hinterland, whose house stands right next to the local sawmill, thus it felt only natural to include a woodcutter boss in his story. That’s how we came up with the concept for Woodcutter Joe – a character with a little secret, as he’s not exactly human! Not that it would be hard to realize this at first glance.

Woodcutter Joe is an alien zombie, who made it onto the show as the most intelligent living corpse in the Universe. Hailing from a planet ravaged by Zombie Apocalypse, Joe distinguished himself by watching the Astro Monster Show non-stop, while his lesser undead brethren were aimlessly wandering around in search of fresh brains to chew on. Impressed by his devotion to the brand, the producers decided to “invite” Joe to participate in his favorite sporting event!

Developer's comment

Joe was the very first boss we came up with and it also took us the longest to finalize his concept. As we progressed further into the game’s development, we often found ourselves going back to tweak or improve something about poor old Joe.

Upon receiving damage, the prototype Woodcutter Joe would scream out to his undersized minions to attack the player. Later we decided to include this yell into one of his combo attacks. Moving on, we have given him new weapons and gadgets – a flamethrower and some highly damaging embers. In the end, all of this seemed to overcomplicate the fight, making it impossible to concentrate on the boss itself, so the tiny woodcutters migrated to another level, while Joe stayed behind, ready to fight Redneck Ed one-on-one.

HONEYMAN

Once upon a time on a planet far, far away… A dramatic drop in demand for honey forced the bees to bury the surplus of the sweetest naturally occurring element into the ground so that it did not attract flies and other interdimensional vermin. Time passed and everyone has all but forgotten about the incident which turned out to be a HUGE mistake.

In time the buried honey mutated in its underground prison and evolved into the terrifying Honeyman – a sentient monster that’s extremely pissed off that everyone had abandoned him.

This sweet scoundrel has prepared a scandalous plan to exact his revenge, but as soon as he dug himself out and took the first breath of fresh air, someone knocked him out and thus the Honeyman has become an attraction in the Astro Monsters Show.

Developer's comment (attention – major spoilers!)

The Honeyman together with his home arena – the Honey Hell – has undergone many transformations. The prototype of the arena was much shorter with no secondary boss fight and no additional features like platforms, mounts, candy, etc. All of these things were added over time.

The Honeyman is the first boss in the game that uses dashing and spitting. The uniqueness of the Honey Hell arena lies in the tandem of bosses you will have to fight here – two bosses will team up to take Ed down. Who the mysterious second boss is, you ask? Well, you will just have to wait until the game’s release to find out!

SLIME BUNNY

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The main concept for this boss, who was transferred into the Astro Monster Show’s studio from the planet called Offtorian, is based on the grotesque transformation of a cute, harmless-looking rabbit into a bloodthirsty alien beast.

Offtorian is a planet populated by various species, including these cuddly creatures. Nothing will probably happen to you if you were to simply pass by without engaging with this adorable critter in any way. But should you hit it (even accidentally), the bunbun immediately becomes an ultra-violent and malicious demon, that stomps and breaks through brick walls with its long stretchy arms, desperate to annihilate everything and everyone in its path.

Developer's comment

The idea for the Slime Bunny was born at an early stage of development. The goal was to exploit the element of surprise, playing off the contrasts between two states of the same enemy. A cute bunny turns out to be an evil shapeshifter that easily transforms into a massive rabbit-like elastic slime.

Spoiler alert! The Slime Bunny has a unique superpower – it can continuously attack you with its giant paw while alternating between his cute and deadly forms multiple times in a row.

There were zero problems with bringing this idea to life. All the animated sketches we got for the prototype worked flawlessly. A bit later we added some evil minions to help it out, but the boss itself was not changed much.

CLINT

Clint, originally a citizen of the Lightning planet, retired early and spent most of his time playing golf (explaining his out-of-place outfit). As you may have guessed, playing golf on a rock literally called “the Lightning planet” is actually quite dangerous, despite the multitude of lightning rods everywhere.

Picture this: thunderbolts are rumbling everything in sight, a small flock of flying piranhas (a friendly local analog of Earth birds) merrily frolicking in the sky… Beautiful, isn’t it? And then, right at the moment when Clint was about to swing his club – BAM! The old-timer gets struck by one of those things his planet was named after. Even worse: the power of high voltage has merged Clint together with the aforementioned flying piranhas and – BOOM! – transformed this humble golf player into a sharp-toothed predator.

At that very moment, a “talent seeker” from the Astro Monsters Show appeared out of nowhere and escorted Clint away before he could bite anyone.

Developer's comment

Clint is one of the most dangerous enemies Ed has to clash against and somehow we knew he would turn out this way from the moment we have drawn the very first sketch of him. Clint’s attacks are so deadly that we had to simplify and even scale some of them down.

One of Clint’s distinctive features is that he’s not just your typical boss, but rather a whole type of monsters since the player can meet several of Clint’s clones while investigating his arena. Spoiler alert! Remember – should Clint fall to the ground it’s best to keep your distance, otherwise, you risk getting in the way of his rather painful counter-attack!

EPILOGUE

We hope that you enjoyed this little excursion into the world of Redneck Ed: Astro Monsters Show and will consider adding the game to your wishlist on Steam, to your collection on Itch or testdriving the demo on GameJolt, so that you can soon meet all of the esteemed mobsters mentioned here in person! 

Please follow the latest news on the official Redneck Ed: Astro Monsters Show social media. The release date is drawing near! And, of course, don’t hesitate to ask us anything in the comment section below – we’ll make sure to respond as soon as possible!