Just moving the screen around a bit randomly, and offsetting the camera away from where you're aiming can be so powerful. Other than that we always make sure our projectiles move at relatively high speed, look huge (the bullets in most of our games are about the same size as the players), and communicate clearly (with some animated effects) when hitting something. A good, punchy, bassy gunshot does wonders. On Nuclear Throne we're working with a great audio designer called Joonas Turner, who manages to produce super realistic but over the top sound effects that really suit this game. Nijman: There's a couple of things, but the most important factor would probably be sound. RPS: What are the most important factors in making a gun feel good? What we do at Vlambeer is spend a lot of time working on the 'reactions enter player' part. That last bit is where it becomes valuable. Game enters player > player puts input into game > game reacts > reactions enter player > player thinks about reactions. The problem with (and cool thing about) games is that we need player input before our systems become of any value. I guess 'feel' is something super abstract we both have to work with in a non-abstract way. Nijman: 'Feel' is a super vague term to game designers as well, and while you guys have things such as 'crunchy' and 'meaty', we have things such as 'add more bass to the sound effect' and 'screen shake'.

He was gracious enough to do the hard work of explaining why Nuclear Throne feels great for me. I wrote to Vlambeer game designer Jan Willem Nijman about how you make pixels bullets feel powerful, and about finding a better language to talk about videogames. 'Feel' is a poisonous word in games criticism though, and I was unsatisfied with the normal language used to describe games like this: 'meaty', 'weighty' and 'crunchy' only gets us so far.

Nuclear Throne (formerly Wasteland Kings) is currently available in Steam Early Access, and like those other games, it already feels great. It's fast, frantic, and made by Vlambeer, the two-man indie development studio behind similarly compulsive shooters Super Crate Box and LUFTRAUSER. Nuclear Throne is an 'action roguelike-like': a top-down shooter with permadeath, set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and starring a cast of mutants who need to hoover up radiation to gain in power.

Nuclear throne rap song