Nuclear Blaze | Difficulty Settings & Kid Mode Video

Nuclear Blaze 

Nuclear Blaze is a 2D action-adventure game developed by Deepnight Games. You play as a firefighter, exploring a secret military facility, rescuing kittens and putting out fires. As you play, you unlock more abilities that you will need to keep making progress and also learn more about the facility.

Nuclear Blaze has several difficulty settings that can help make the game more accessible, and also has a ‘Kid Mode’, which are a set of levels that have been designed to make the game more accessible for younger players, but which can also make the game more accessible for players of all ages.

In this video, we will take a look at the gameplay and controls and also focus on the settings and ‘Kid Mode’. This game is available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series consoles and Windows PC. All footage captured in this video will be on Nintendo Switch, and we will be looking at the Nintendo Switch version of the game, including the controls and settings, but these settings are featured in all versions of the game, regardless of platform.

Controls 

Nuclear Blaze can be played with a single joystick, or the D-pad, to move your character. You use one button for spraying water from the hose, called ‘Watering’, which you often have to hold down for a period of time. Watering is used to put out fires, and also there is some combat in later stages of the game, where you use water to defeat enemies. Another button is used for jumping. You will need to move the joystick at the same time as jumping. You also need a Use button to interact with items, such as switching off the gas pipes. This button needs to be held down when interacting.  

You also unlock extra moves and abilities during gameplay, which you will need to progress further. You unlock these by collecting them during some of the early levels. These are the ability to spray water upwards, downwards, and also to evade. In the Controls menu, you will also notice that the evade ability is called Dodge.

To spray water upwards, you can press up on the D-pad or the left analog stick and then press the Watering button. However, you can alternatively press the Right Bumper button which means you do not need to press up on the analog stick or D-pad to spray up.   

You can also spray down, which also provides your character with a shield which you need at certain points. You can do this by pressing down and the Watering button together, or you can press the Left Bumper button. This move also allows you to put out fires on levels below you.

You will also have a button mapped to Dodge. You can also, and at times may need to, Jump and then Dodge. 

You can check the controls by pausing the game, and going to ‘Controls’ or via the ‘Settings’ in the Main Menu. You can also remap the buttons. If, for example, you wanted to change Jump from B to A, you can do this by pressing the A button to open up the option to remap the controls, and then in this case pressing A again. Note that it un-maps the Dodge button, and to have access to this move you will need to map it to another button; you cannot try to double up buttons. If you forget to map a button, the game will let you play, but you will not be able to activate the particular move that you have left unmapped.  

Although you can remap all buttons, you cannot remap the analog stick or put button presses onto the analog stick directions. Select ‘restore to default’ to revert back to the default controls.  

Settings Menu 

You can access the settings from the main menu and also when you pause the game. If you want to change a setting and then make that change active immediately, you will need to restart the level. If you do not restart the level, a message will come up on-screen.

Difficulty Settings 

When you first pause the game, you will notice that the game difficulty is, by default, set to 65%. Adjusting the various individual settings listed under Difficulty, will adjust this overall difficulty percentage. For instance, you could reduce the difficulty of each of the settings, which could bring the difficulty rating down to 0%, depending on what you choose. These settings are your Armor levels, if you have Extra Water and a Powerful Water Hose and the amount that fire spreads. We will now have a look at each of these: 

Armor – In the game you can collect armour which allows you to take an extra hit in game. You can also set the armour from 0, to 1, 2 or unlimited. With armour on, once you are hit the fire all around your character will be automatically put out by a spray of water.  By default, the armour is set to 0. This means that your character will lose a life the first time he is hit. However, setting it to 1 means you can take one hit without losing a life, and the second hit will result in the loss of a life. Setting it to 2 gives you two hits. You can also set armour to unlimited, which makes your character invincible in most situations. There are some specific moments where you may lose a life, such as if you try to progress in a certain level prior to collecting the evade ability. Collecting the evade ability would then help overcome this section.

Extra Water – During gameplay, to the right of the screen, you can see how much water you have left in your water tank. Spraying water will slowly empty this tank. By default, Extra Water is set to Off. If you feel that you are running out of water too quickly, you can set this to On, which gives you roughly double the amount of water.

Powerful Water Hose – By default, Powerful Water Hose is set to ‘Off.’ You can select this to be ‘On’ instead. When ‘On’, this makes the hose range longer and also more effective at putting out fires. It still uses up water at a similar rate to having this option set to ‘Off’. 

Fire Spreading – By default, fire spreading is set to normal. This means that fire will spread across the map, and after you have put out certain parts, it can spread back into that area of the level. You can change this from ‘Normal’ to ‘Slower’, meaning it spreads at a slower pace, or you can switch fire spreading off completely.

Hold My Beer Mode – Completing the main game unlocks ‘Hold My Beer’ mode, which is described as a reimagining of the game world with new areas, items and threats. In this mode, fire also spreads much faster.  There are also automatic gun turrets which will shoot at you and can be destroyed by spraying them with water. 

In this mode, by default, difficulty is set to 100%. You can adjust all of the same individual (difficulty) settings that are found in the standard game mode and can bring the difficulty down to 50%.

Kid Mode 

‘Kid Mode’ is a set of specially made levels in which the aiming, jumping and platforming is automated. The original game was intended to be a game the developer’s 3-year-old child could play, but as the main game became too complex the ‘Kid Mode’ levels were added by the developer to provide a ‘better experience for very young kids’, by reducing the number of control inputs required. The levels also include specific level design, rules and gameplay to accompany this. 

You can play this entire mode with a single stick for player movement and a single button. Pressing any buttons on the controller will spray the hose, and you only need to move the left analog stick left and right, as the character will automatically jump over obstacles and will automatically climb up ladders when you walk towards them.

The hose will automatically aim, so the player only needs to hold down one of the buttons to fire the hose. The aim of this mode is to put out the fires and rescue all of the kittens on each stage.  

Pausing the game will not give the option to change the difficulty settings that we have previously covered in this video, as they are not required for this mode, and you do not need any of the extra abilities. In this mode, your character is also invincible, so cannot die.

(Outro) 

Thank you for watching this video. We hope that it has been useful in introducing you to some of the settings in Nuclear Blaze. For more information on settings such as the ones featured in this video in other games, or for information on alternative controllers, please visit the SpecialEffect GameAccess site.   

For developers looking for more video examples of how developers have improved the motor accessibility of their games, these can be found on the SpecialEffect DevKit.  

For instance, to automate certain digital or analog actions, like Nuclear Blaze’s ‘Kid Mode’ does, please see modules 7.3 and 7.4 in the Simplification topic. 

And to see how other developers have allowed players to customise their difficulty, please see module 6.3 in the Assistance Topic.