Atomicrops is one of the many games that we've caught a glimpse of during our time at GDC19, but we'll let creator Danny Wynne explain the basic premise as, of course, he does a great job:
"It's an action-packed post-apocalyptic farming simulator," he explained during our interview in San Francisco. "It's a roguelite, so you're doing a lot of synergising with powerup and upgrades, you're collecting farm animals that help you farm, you're marrying people. The tagline of the game is: Farm. Marry. Kill. So you do your farming, then you do your killing - you collect fertiliser when you kill enemies - and then you marry to like level up and have [...] an ally to help you attack and farm."
Atomicrops sounds like a strange mix of ingredients (in a good way), and Wynne explained how he mashed together two games that he loves to make something that he himself would like to play.
"So I was playing a lot of Stardew Valley at the time," he confessed when explaining the game's origins, "and I was heading down into the caves, fighting slimes, coming back and farming my crops, just doing that loop. And I was like, 'what if I just put them together?' And the idea for Atomicrops came up. And I play a lot of Nuclear Throne too, so I just mashed them together. I pitched it to Raw Fury and they loved it, and now here we are."
Check out the full interview below, which includes more from Wynne as well as insight from art director Toby Dixon.