Pixel art captures the nostalgic vibe of 80s and 90s side-scrollers in Door Kickers: Action Squad Artbook. Developers drew from childhood hours of similar gameplay and modern inspirations to shape this indie strategy spin-off. The book showcases the evolution from a zombie-shooting plumber prototype to the game's trooper squad through detailed 2000s-style retro graphics.
This digital PDF traces character and style development in a compact visual journey. Fans of action squad simulations find inspiration here for their own projects. Access it easily from the PC game's install folder via Steam properties.
Door Kickers: Action Squad is nostalgia and old memories rekindled by fresh ideas and inspiration from other cool games we play now. We got hundreds of hours of similar gameplay in our childhoods - back in the 80s or 90s - and wanted to recreate that feeling for today’s players and even our own kids.
To be able to recreate the atmosphere of the time, this side-scroller had to be pixel art. But because we are in the years 2000 retro graphics with high detail is what we wanted to achieve and we hope we did it.
It all started with Knockjack - a prototype that was showcased to us by Mike of PixelShard; It looked cool - and old school - but had a plumber guy shooting zombies in the face as central character. To make it more our own and transform it into a spin-off of Door Kickers we brought the old gang of troopers in this version too. It took us a while to define the style and characters of the game and this small art book graphically documents the process.
May it bring you inspiration and joy in your own creations!
The artbook is available as a PDF file in:
_game install folder_\Door Kickers - Action Squad\Action Squad Artbook_digital artbook.pdf
To navigate there, right-click on the game in the Steam Library -> Properties -> Local Files -> Browse
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