Broforce is a pretty unique game to hit Steam Greenlight made by great people at Free Lives. I have followed it's progress and have paid close attention to each new release as it comes. Broforce is great with a controller and is especially fun playing it with friends on couch co-op. Recently Free Lives has hinted at the next Broforce update titled "Death From Above" that will come sometime this week and I can't wait to see what it ships with. I reached out to Free Lives so I could ask them some questions about Broforce and what makes it the most amazing direct video game translation to a "freedom face punch" in existence.

https://twitter.com/devolverdigital/statuses/481838930040328192

You might also note that Alex Atkins, famed writer of the hit new Steam game "Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake" also dropped in to add some questions to the mix as well. Yay, friendship.

Death From Above Update is Now Live:

http://www.devolverdigital.com/blog/view/broforce-updated-and-celebrating-merica

jdodson: Broforce is a good example of how to do Steam Greenlight well. People love the game already and seem very happy with the updates as you make them. What do you think of how the game has been received so far?

Evan Greenwood: While I can’t say we were exactly surprised at the world’s voracious appetite for democracy, we really are glad to be the ones feeding it. All the positive feedback has been really motivating and we are truly blessed to have such a great fanbase.

Alex Atkins: Do you have a lawnmower I can borrow?

Evan Greenwood: Yes. No. Maybe. Bro Hard is quite good at cutting grass, you can try using him?

Alex Atkins: You’ve mentioned in other interviews your intention to incorporate a space opera-like story into Broforce. Any idea when fans might get a glimpse of this?

Evan Greenwood: We’d always want to keep a fair chunk of the story arc secret until launch. That said, we’re working on some snippets of story at the moment that we’re keen to show fans, and get feedback on. So there’ll be a glimpse within a month or two, and assuming we grow in confidence in our storytelling, a bit more after that.

jdodson: With that, what are you working on right now with Broforce?

Evan Greenwood: Right now, we are working on some top-secret things that we can’t wait to show off. Mid term plans include expanding on the story, locations, bros and enemies in the game. The community has also been amazingly creative with our level editor, and improving that and the built in level sharing is very high on our priority list.

Alex Atkins: Will Free Lives be making convention appearances in the near future that fans should be aware of?

Evan Greenwood: Devolver are very awesome at making sure we have a presence at all the major conventions. We will be at Gamescom in Germany in August, and at Pax Prime in Seattle at the intersection of August and September.

jdodson: Based on how well things have been going, when do think the game may ship 1.0?

Evan Greenwood: We will only ship once we are happy with the quality and quantity of content in Broforce. This makes it hard to guess what the date would be, but it will hopefully be in the next year.

jdodson: Some people seem to dislike the auto Bro-switch feature that happens when you die or rescue a hostage. Some think that it would be better to simply pick a Bro for a particular level or switch on command. Wondering what your thoughts are about this critique and if you have any plans to accommodate this play style?

Evan Greenwood: Adapting your playstyle and switching tactics on the fly depending on which bro you have is one of the core tenets of Broforce’s gameplay. When I first played Doom, I played with IDDQD and IDKFA, and it took me a while to realise that the game is simply more fun with those off, even if it meant I couldn’t use the BFG all the time. I think it’s a similar case for bro selection in Broforce. This has been so widely requested that we might consider a mode such as this, but the main campaign of Broforce will always have random bro selection.

Alex Atkins: Care to expand on the Devil character that waits at the end of most levels?

Evan Greenwood: It’s Satan. Satan is evil. If you see him, you should probably shoot/stab/burn/explode/punch him.

jdodson: As someone that is super excited for Steam Machines and the whole SteamOS/Linux mix I am curious when you plan on making a Linux build available?

Evan Greenwood: Supporting an extra platform greatly adds to development time, time that at this stage should rather be spent on adding and polishing content in Broforce. That said, there will definitely be a linux version of Broforce available on launch.

jdodson: People want more Bros. A few people in the community have asked for Broeddy Krueger, Broba Fett, Abroham Lincoln & Broda. And you know, i’d be partial to some Ninja Shell Bros or Captain Brocard. Any word on future updates featuring any of these or other community suggestion Bros?

Evan Greenwood: There’s a lot of glaring omissions in the roster of Broforce at the moment. Until recently there wasn’t a single Jean Claude van Damme character, and there still isn’t a character portrayed by Steven Seagal.

One thing we’d like to do to solve this problem, is give the community some more powerful tools so that they can easily make these characters themselves. I really want to play a campaign where I play as four ninja-trained anthropomorphic turtles, for example, but I’m not sure how everyone feels about fighting as an anthropomorphic turtle next to Rambro. So far we’ve been stunned by the ingenuity of the level creators, and so we’d like to give them more toys to play with.

jdodson: One part yet to come to Broforce are the new Alien & Contra themed levels. I can’t wait to play them and as such am wondering how the development is going? Are there any plans for any boss additions to these levels? I also heard there would be Dinosaurs. Hopefully nature finds a way.

Evan Greenwood: Contra is a game we grew up with, and really defined for us what action heroes should be doing in video games. Unfortunately at the moment we’ve got a few more pressing development deadlines, but we’re itching to get back to expanding that part of the Broforce universe.

Alex Atkins: You’ve spoken about the incorporation of female characters into Broforce, and the dilemmas of doing so. Have you gotten any feedback from female gamers that has helped your decisions in this regard?

Evan Greenwood: I don’t feel that focusing on adding token female bros is helpful to Broforce or improving representation as a whole. Instead, if someone is badass enough, we add them regardless of gender, and there is no shortage of badass female characters.

Alex Atkins: Expanding on that question, you’ve also mentioned wanting to potentially add Sarah Connor, Tank Girl, and The Bride as Bros. Any others in mind?

Evan Greenwood: Our next update will feature a new female bro that isn’t in that list!

jdodson: What is the tech stack that powers Broforce?

Evan Greenwood: Broforce is built entirely in Unity, but we are not using Unity’s built-in 2D features as they were added only recently.

jdodson: At the point that Broforce ships the final version, what’s next for Free Lives?

Evan Greenwood: Right now we are only focusing on making Broforce the biggest and best game it could possibly be. We have one or two prototypes that we might be interested in taking further once we are finished.