Jump Tanks, a 5-on-5 arena shooter now on Early Access, allows players to customize their tanks with various weapons and parts.
Casey Holtz, creator of the game at Mechanical Butterfly Studios, sent us some of the artwork of their tank parts and designs, talking about the inspirations they’ve taken from shmups and other shooter games.
Holtz has also included a few weapon and part design screenshots to showcase some of the equipment players can attach to their leaping tanks.
Holtz also commented on a few of the tank designs they’ve come up with, talking about the specific games that inspired their parts and looks.
“The classic tank from Metal Slug is a fun design, we made a less super deformed take on their design. I love the details, the lights and tow cable hooks and the rounded exhaust. The treads themselves are great but would be quite difficult to animate and rig for 3D so we had to simplify ours.”
“There is a bit more shmup/fighter ship inspiration in another one Chassis. It is a mix between the Vic Viper from Gradius and various Macross design elements. We thought it would be fun to put the cockpit and wing elements on a tank base. This is a light weight Chassis designed for speed. The sleek design of fighter jets helps convey speed and agility which is sometimes hard to do with a more traditional tank design.”
“As a big fan of shmups, I was inspired by the more original ship designs found in those games. The Hitekkai ship from Ikaruga has some really cool fins and spikes that I thought would look good on a tank chassis. We made a chassis that has these kind of spiked shoulder units. It ended up kind of looking like a Spartan helmet.”
Jump Tanks is available for purchase on Steam Early Access.
