Xbox Live Indie Games developer Mommy’s Best Games is releasing a game with the improbable (and amazing) name Explosionade this month. Inspired a bit by Metal Slug, it features the age-old story of some guy coming across a death-dealing prototype robot and then running havoc with it with absolutely no moral qualms whatsoever. Mommy’s Best Games formerly released the well-received Shoot 1-Up and Explosionade’s trailer seems like it won’t disappoint.

The developers credit their graphical inspiration to something that SNK (developers of Metal Slug) would have made, and this influence is also clearly felt in the gameplay: the player’s mecha, GRenaDOS, has at least as much of the firepower that Metal Slug’s vehicles had, while also putting a lot of emphasis on the “feel” of controlling that large vehicle. This combination of heavy firepower with heavy weight means that Mommy’s Best gratefully avoids the common pitfall that most Western developers make with games featuring robots, by thinking of them as human analogues rather than as vehicles when the game should properly allow the player to feel in control of a machine rather than a man.

The way the mech aims and boost-jumps also reminds us of Assault Suits Valken (released in the West as Cybernator), which was certainly one of the best mecha games released on the Super Nintendo and which inspired the Western developed Metal Warriors and the doujin game GunHound as well as the better known Front Mission: Gun Hazard (itself developed by the Assault Suits developers). The interesting thing to note here is that if the game uses a dual analog setup, as we think it does, then Explosionade would be using a control scheme that wasn’t available to those earlier games, who likely would have used it if it had been available. While Assault Suits Valken is an excellent game, it is also known for its fairly punishing difficulty and at least part of this was the directional pad controlling both movement and aiming, and Explosionade could therefore be a much easier game for the casual fan to get their mechanical carnage fix with while also offering almost the same experience.

The reason I’m so excited for this game, though, isn’t just because it’s a game about a quadrupedal robot stomping around and firing grenades at disgusting aliens, but because it’s a game about a quadrupedal robot stomping around and firing grenades at disgusting aliens for 80 Microsoft Points. That is, one whole US dollar. For what you’d spend on gas to drive yourself to the local game store, you can get an amazing game with an amazing name, and support an indie developer raising money to continue working on their longer-term project Grapple Buggy. It’s like charity, really, except you get a free mecha game and also I don’t believe the cause of “making a game about tanks with grappling hooks” is tax deductible.

The game’s release date is indeterminate due to a problem with the Xbox Live Indie Game section not updating correctly (an interesting read if you’re curious about the thoughts of an XBLIG developer), but should be out sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, you can froth over this tasty trailer: