Hi There!

We're Axon Flux, a Swiss indie studio that develops games you'll actually complete. Compact, uncluttered, zero-filler gameplay at an affordable price, but with all the love and care of big titles.

In this first Devlog, we want to introduce you to our first shot at achieving this goal.

CACTUS

CACTUS (working title) is a first-person shooter, in which you, a lone-survivor cactus, must save your home planet from certain destruction. To succeed, make use of your sharp needles in frenzy firefights, explore deep tombs to unlock new abilities and use the harsh desert to your advantage while journeying to the holy valley.

The game is heavily inspired by classics and modern indie FPS alike. However, contrary to most (boomer) shooters, we aim for a colorful and comical atmosphere, as to pay our respects to genre-defining "ancestors", such as the Serious Sam series, which is our main point of reference.

Besides that, similarities to 2000s horde shooters like Painkiller or Will Rock, as well as elements from recent hits such as Dusk or Amid Evil won't be there by coincidence either.

We greatly enjoyed all of these titles and think the world needs more of it, so here we go.

Features

CACTUS will be a strictly singleplayer game. No feature creep, no filler-content, no microtransactions.

Just a wild ride for a night, or two...

The premise is straightforward: You’re a cactus, and it shoots needles. Explosive needles, to be precise. Tag as many enemies as possible and nail the timing of your reload to trigger impressive chain explosions. This ability is a  crossover-mechanic between the popular needler gun from Halo and the active reloading minigame from Gears of War.

Besides that, each level will introduce new hazards and interactables that harmonize with the desert setting. Use these to your advantage, for example by swiftly sliding down sand paths, luring enemies into heat zones or ascending to higher ground using a sandstorm.

Speaking of enemies; the cast of foes covers a colorful range of desert animals (all gone crazy), that will test your sharpness in varied ways. And as you venture into age-old tombs, prepare to face even greater threats lurking in the dark...

Development

We build the game in Unity 3D. To amplify our cartoony art style, the new HDRP is our render pipeline of choice, since it offers advanced lighting and volumetric effects, which helps a lot when developing a desert setting.

Of course, we also use a bunch of great third-party plugins, such as Bakery for light mapping, Magic Light Probes and A* Pathfinding for enemy navigation. We also use several custom-made tools, the best of which is our own enemy wave editor, but that’s a topic for another Devlog.

Future Outlook

So much to our first Devlog. My name is Simon by the way and I'm the Community Manager.

I studied and worked in communications, while simultaneously tending to my passion for games. So by joining my friends at Axon Flux, I snapped at the opportunity to combine the best of both.

Currently we are in the process of creating a free demo which is set to release in the first quarter of 2023. With lots of feedback from you, we then can start to build the rest of the game.

See you in a bit!

Free Demo

We will release a free demo in Q1 2023, so stay tuned.

Get In Touch

Find more about us on:

For business: Website | E-Mail | LinkedIn

For players: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube