Neon Inferno Interview – Developer Sri Kankanahalli Chats Inspiration, Mechanics, and Challenge

An explosive fusion of 2D run-and-gun and gallery-shooter (think Contra meets Wild Guns!), Zenovia Interactive and Retroware are bringing cybernetic action across multiple fronts with Neon Inferno.

After diving into the recent Neon Inferno Steam Couch Co-Op Fest demo, Gamers Heroes spoke with Zenovia Interactive’s Sri Kankanahalli to learn more about this title’s inspiration, mechanics, and diehard challenge.

Neon Inferno Interview – Developer Sri Kankanahalli Chats Inspiration, Mechanics, and Challenge

Gamers Heroes

Congrats on such a killer Neon Inferno demo – still on the hunt for the 1CC demo clear myself! As somebody who grew up playing classics like Contra, Metal Slug, and Wild Guns, you’re after my own heart with this title. On that note, how did the development of Neon Inferno and its focus on both the foreground and background come to be?

Sri Kankanahalli

Thank you Casey! We started experimenting with the combined foreground-background action very shortly after the release of our first game, Steel Assault, in late 2021. I knew that for our next game, I wanted to have more interactive and more destructible environments. And when I mentioned that to a friend, he said it reminded him of an idea he had long ago of a game which combined Contra-style and Cabal-style mechanics. Immediately I thought it was a cool idea, and by the time I had cleared Wild Guns a few weeks later, I knew it was a killer idea.

The idea also was influenced by another comment I once read, I think by a superplayer on some Internet forum, which stuck with me. These are the kinds of guys who have 1CC lists longer than CVS receipts, and they were having a conversation about side-scroller stages, and one of them said something like: “Well, if you’re playing these games at a high enough level, you don’t even notice their backgrounds. You notice less each time you go through a stage because you’re so locked in.” I thought about my own experiences playing these kinds of games, and I realized he was kind of right, and that annoyed me a bit. Because why were we obsessing over these Steel Assault stages and putting all of these details into their backgrounds if the players noticed less each time? The artists put hours of their lives into these backgrounds, those players should be noticing more each time, not less! And the best way to make that happen would be to make the stage backgrounds more interactive.

Gamers Heroes

One of the things I loved (but still need to master) is the bullet parrying mechanic. It’s something rarely seen in games, but I love how it makes players be in the here-and-now. How did this mechanic come to be?

Sri Kankanahalli

Originally the player’s knife just absorbed bullets, like the electro-whip in our previous game Steel Assault, but quickly we figured out it was more fun to deflect them. The bullet-time aspects took us longer to finalize. My initial vision of the game felt more like a 2D Max Payne, with players leaping around in slow-motion like a John Woo movie, but I just couldn’t get it to feel fun, for a bunch of different reasons. So we ended up moving the slo-mo to the deflect instead, and I think it slots in there wonderfully.

Gamers Heroes

One of the things I loved about Steel Assault was how it challenges the player – I know about Neon Inferno’s 1 Credit Clear Arcade Mode, but what can you tell us so far about how you are challenging players with Neon Inferno?

Sri Kankanahalli

The 1CC mode is a lot of fun and in many ways my ideal way to play the game. That arcade structure already provides a lot of challenge, just inherently, but one thing we also try to do is to have at least two things going on in most parts of a stage. For example, the player shouldn’t ever be able to just crouch in one place and shoot at a boss, at least not for very long. There should be stuff forcing them to move around, whether it comes from the foreground or from the background. It’s like the idea of counterpoint in music: You want multiple independent lines of action which harmonize and work together, but which are both coherent enough to navigate.

Gamers Heroes

Neon Inferno is one gorgeous game – absolutely love its sprite-work! Can you tell me more about the artistic design process that went into its world?

Sri Kankanahalli

The theme and setting of Neon Inferno came about through a long and circuitous process which might surprise many people. The initial concept of the game wasn’t cyberpunk at all, or even science fiction. The original working title of the game was “American Dream” and it took place in 1970s New York City! It was basically supposed to be a cartoon riff on a Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola crime film. My idea was that you’d start as a Mafia gangster in the ’70s, and each stage would shift forward a few years, such that the game would follow its protagonist from youth to old age, with the decisions they make (or fail to make) rippling through the story. And although I never figured out how to make it plausible, I wanted the players’ actions to be able to nudge the world into alternate histories or futures, (one of which would be cyberpunk) depending on who they chose to kill, or not kill. They would have the option to leave the Mafia and become a CIA agent, for example, and that would open up the door to all sorts of Cold War intrigue.

The branching paths were the first thing we dropped, since I quickly realized we didn’t yet have the resources for them. But I stayed attached to the ’70s theme for a bit longer. (That year I was listening to a lot of ’60s and ’70s music, and I was dating a girl who loved Edie Sedgwick, so it felt like it was all of a piece.) The problem was, it’s a very limiting theme for an action game, especially a 2D action game. You can’t even really have flying enemies in the ’70s. And while there are primitive robots and drones, they don’t look very cool yet. In the end I decided to keep the Mafia crime themes, but shift the setting forward into Blade-Runner-esque neon cyberpunk (evolving the Mafia into what Neon Inferno now calls the Family), and immediately that became very interesting.

(That’s what Angelo’s cross was inspired by, incidentally. Since the Mafia is an Italian organization, Catholicism runs deep in their blood, and it shows up all the time in mob-inspired media too; think the baptism scene in The Godfather, or Harvey Keitel in Mean Streets. The conflicted, introspective sinner is one of the coolest character archetypes out there, in my opinion.)

Gamers Heroes

What’s some of the more interesting things you’ve seen throughout the playtests of Neon Inferno? Were there any MVP players that pulled off something you weren’t expecting?

Sri Kankanahalli

One player managed to kill the first boss before his second phase! He just broke the fight completely. We run Neon Inferno at local in-person playtests at least once or twice a month, and it’s always a great time. It’s amazing how you can work on a game for years, and yet every time you see people play it, you catch some new detail you hadn’t before. I especially love testing the game’s co-op, and it’s even better if the two players are already friends, or if they’re dating. I bet 2P co-op on Arcade Mode could tear apart some relationships.

Gamers Heroes

What future events – either in-person or online – can we expect to see Neon Inferno at? Happy to evangelize and spread the word!

Sri Kankanahalli

There’s still much to be confirmed, but at the very least, I believe we’re entering Neon Inferno into the Steam Next Fest this coming June. The game might also make an appearance at PAX East this year!

Neon Inferno can now be added to one’s Steam wishlist; one can also learn more about Neon Inferno via its official website.

Zenovia Interactive can be followed on Twitter/X, and fans can learn more via the official Zenovia website.

Fans can stay up-to-date on the latest news from Retroware via their website and social media channels like Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. One can also join the conversation via the official Retroware Discord channel.

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