The Unlockable Indie Game Characters of Super Meat Boy

Aug 13, 2010

Super Meat Boy is an upcoming 2D platformer due out on WiiWare and XBLA November of this year. It is based on the original Flash game, Meat Boy, which came out in 2008. Team Meat have been working hard to include an onslaught of unlockable characters from past indie video games. To access the full roster, players will have to collect band-aid pick ups strewn about various levels.

1. Tim, the downtrodden time-traveling hero of Braid was one of the first playable character announced for Super Meat Boy. The implication is that he will possess a similar rewind mechanic to what is found in the source material. Edmund McMillen helped work on Braid early in its development.

2. Alien Hominid of Alien Hominid will also be present in Super Meat Boy. The original game is a Flash game in the style of Metal Slug, which later went on to be released for GBA, Xbox, PS2 and GC. How AH will play is up in the air, but his main weapon in the Flash game was his trusty blaster.

3. Flywrench of Flywrench will also be playable. For those who haven’t had a chance to play the original game click here. It is the ultimate take on minimalist character and level design. Flywrench is literally nothing more than a flexible right angle that can either flap, rotate, bounce, or glide. According to Team Meat, “Flywrench features the ability to fly for a short amount of time, flapping his wings to gain height and changing colors as he would in the original game.”

4. Commander Video of the Bit.Trip series will also be unlockable at some point in the game. Although Commander Video wasn’t playable until the fourth Bit.Trip game, he was used as part of a marketing campaign to promote the series from its inception. In Super Meat Boy he handles a lot like how he does in Bit.Trip.Runner, leaving behind a rainbow trail in his wake. He’s slower than Meat Boy but has a slower descent when he jumps.

5. Ogmo from Jumper, another red cubed character will be playable. He boasts a double jump move. It seems like Team Meat are taking the similarities between Ogmo and Meat Boy lightheartedly. From the character select screen, Ogmo’s only cons are that he is a “Ripoff!”

6. Gish is one of Edmund McMillen’s earlier creations. In the game of the same name, Gish is a black blob character who sticks to walls. According to McMillen, “he will also leave a trail of black goo.”

Its great that Team Meat are showing their love and appreciation for games that sometimes don’t get enough attention. Having all these extra characters with different abilities will also certainly add some good replay value to SMB. Team Meat says there will be even more characters available by the time of release.

Each picture displayed came from either Team Meat’s development blog or Super Meat Boy’s Blogspot page, each of which are maintained primarily by Edmund McMillen.