Classic arcade brawler action with an RPG twist awaits you in this 2D side-scrolling game based on the hit anime series Fullmetal Alchemist. Control the brothers Ed and Al as they battle their way through swarms of bad guys on their search for the fabled Philosopher's Stone.

This game differs from most brawlers in that the player has control of two characters instead of one. Each character has his own health bar and special abilities, however only one character can be active at a time. The inactive character automatically trails behind the active one and occasionally helps out with a melee attack. The active character can be switched at any time with a simple key press. The game ends if both characters' health bars must be depleted.

Each character has a standard melee attack and a set of magical abilities (alchemical transmutations, in this case). As play progresses, the characters gain experience levels which unlock new abilities. In the anime series, Ed is the stronger alchemist of the two, therefore, in the game, he has more transmutations. Players can call up the alchemy menu at any time during game play and assign a transmutation to one of the three available hot keys. Furthermore, the game rewards players that enjoy experimentation by providing another sub-menu to tweak the distribution of 'elements' that go in to the transmutation. Each transmutation has an ideal setting that will cause the most damage; players have to experiment with different combiniations before they will find the optimum configuration.

The game features seven levels and interstitial cut-scenes to develop the story elements. There are ten enemy types and two boss fights.

Runtime:
Shockwave

Development environment:
Director 8 / Lingo

Support tools:
Photoshop

Michael Szabo:
Programming

Pop (www.popandcompany.com):
Game design
Visual design
Art production
Audio
(and everything else!)