Spain-based solo developer, Mechano, unveiled the first early demo footage of their very first game, Candy Rangers, on YouTube in September 2023 as part of SAGE23 (the 2023 Sonic Amateur Games Expo). Fan excitement for the project was minimal early on, with the earliest trailers only seeing a few hundred views and even fewer likes. After two years of development, however, the arcade-style shoot-em-up has finally been released to the public, alongside a sudden surge in excitement from fans online after the game’s launch trailer was released to YouTube this past October 2. In stark contrast to previous trailers detailing early footage of the game, the launch trailer for Candy Rangers saw a spike in fan excitement for the project, with ~22,000 views and a whopping 2,200 likes.
Candy Rangers sees you take on the role of four rangers, each with their own defining color and shot type. To make it through each shooting range, you will need to match each enemy type with the proper ranger. Candy—the red one of the four—shoots sideways, firing bullets, used against red-labeled enemies oriented in a horizontal line. Mint—the green one—shoots vertically firing bullets, while Plum—the blue one—fires traditional, straight-firing bullets. Lastly, the yellow member of the rangers, Lemon’s bullets fire in a diagonal pattern. As your rangers traverse down the set and branching paths of each level, you will be tasked with handling the chaos of multiple different enemy types appearing on screen in a point-and-click puzzle shoot-em-up style reminiscent of classic on-rails arcade shooters.
The charming and vibrant cel-shaded low-poly 3D world of Candy Rangers is ripe with exciting color-matching puzzles, boss fights, and an exhilarating soundtrack. Fans of colorful and inventive indie projects in genres often overlooked, such as the on-rails shooter genre, are sure to find the announcement of Candy Rangers releasing to Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and 5, as well as PC via Steam, to be incredibly exciting. Not only this, but exclusively for Steam users, PC gamers can try Candy Rangers for free with the free-to-play demo.