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2. Rescue: The Beagles

Rescue: The Beagles is a 2D platformer created by the developer of Counterclockwise and Ablation, where the objective is to save the required number of dogs from the hands of evil researchers in each stage to progress.

"What most people probably don't know is that the story of Rescue: The Beagles is inspired by real events. It's a known fact that beagles are commonly used for drug/product testing because they tend to be phenotypically very similar to each other. A couple of years ago there was a real beagle experimentation incident here in Zagreb. Some institute commissioned a bone fracture drug research from the vet faculty. It involved, among other bad things, breaking the dog's bones. Not everything was quite legal about the whole process so local animal rights organization dug it up and brought it to the attention of the mainstream media. It was a cover story for months and public opinion turned strongly against the testing. The campaign was a success and most of the animals were saved. I think there's still an ongoing lawsuit between AR organization and the researchers.

Beagles are not quite as endearing at it may seem to a naive observer. On surface, they're uber-cute but... psychologically, beagles are very stubborn and demanding creatures, easily forming nasty habits like wallowing in the poo or pigging out on whole birthday cake left on the table. My ex-girlfriend had a beagle and the dog was consuming 95 percent of her attention. I needed to compete and it was all-frustrating. The whole beagle phenomenon probably found it's way into depths of my subconscious. That sure is looking like it calls for Destroy: The Beagles. But it somehow got sublimed out to Rescue.

I know it may sound stupid but one of my (many) obsessions is a visual obsession with tri-color palette of the beagle's (and basset hound's) fur. The black-white-ocher combination is just infinitely enchanting. I could stare into it for hours.

What is 'Rescue:'? I see it as a story/character/gameplay concept based on amateur 'rescuers' who help others on the, sort of, highbrow, altruistic merits. And it all happens on a small-scale, real life, relevant background. So no overblown stuff like military operations to *rescue* hostage scientists to save the world from terminal disaster. Boring and utterly cliche. However, I wanted rescuers to have other, not so soft, side - that of a classical action heroes. In the case of activists in Beagles - they may go 'awww' over the cute animals and sit by the petitions all day long but when the situation turns nasty they won't hesitate to parachute down, get dirty and perform some non-negotiable butt kicking." - Nenad

Name: Rescue: The Beagles
Developer: Nenad
Platform: Windows
Size: 8.01 MB
Also by this developer: Counterclockwise, Ablation

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