Mystery Combat Man IV: The Arcade (Miami, 1987)

Mystery Combat Man IV: The End of Time is the gripping final installment in the legendary Mystery Combat Man series of Source Engine mods. The story follows the Mystery Combat Squad, led by the Mystery Combat Man on their time-traveling and globetrotting quest to save the timeline of Earth from meddling by nefarious forces.

In 1980s Miami, an arcade has been overran by a death cult operating from a crackhouse shack in its back yard. The Mystery Combat Squad team up with Old Man Henderson (an infamous urban legend from the tabletop game Call of Cthulu, where a player created the most outlandish character possible and by pure mad luck won the game) to rescue his collection of garden gnomes that the cult intend on using in a doomsday ritual. The Squad must fight through the arcade, wipe out the cult and then escape before the police arrive.

The Arcade occurs half-way through the game's first act, and was designed to be a lightweight and breezy combat-focused mission in contrast to the gimmick minigame missions that surround it. Aesthetically it had to capture that 1980s Miami Vice style, complete with neon lights and a strong emphasis on pink and blue in both the lighting and textures. As the building will be swarming with cultists I had to ensure there was enough space for all characters involved to navigate easily, which led to a somewhat simplistic amount of detailing.