Some game ideas sound so ridiculous that they immediately become intriguing. For the team behind Denshattack!, which just released today for PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch 2, that idea was deceptively simple: what if a train could drift, grind, wallride, flip, and chain together tricks like a skateboard? What began as a childhood memory of playing with a Japanese model train eventually evolved into one of the most unusual arcade action games currently in development, combining high-speed traversal with trick mechanics inspired by classics like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, and Daytona USA.

Rather than simply parodying those influences, the developers set out to understand what made those games feel so satisfying before rebuilding that energy around the unique physics and scale of a 50-ton train. It looks like the gamble is paying off, as Denshattack! currently sits at a phenomenal 88 average score on Metacritic with a 'Very Positive' user review average on Steam.

We spoke with David Jaumandreu, Studio & Game Director, and Àngel Beltran, Producer & Gameplay Programmer from developer Undercoders, about the game's unusual origins, designing expressive movement around locomotives, building levels across every region of mainland Japan, and creating an efficient art pipeline for a small team.

Denshattack! has one of those concepts that is immediately understandable and completely absurd: doing tricks, grinds, flips, and drifts with a train. Where did that core idea come from, and when did you realize it could support a full game?

David Jaumandreu, Studio and Game Director: The core idea came while childishly playing with a Japanese train model as if it were a fingerskate, making it jump, grind, trick, etc. As a train and skate fan, I thought the concept was cool and started wondering how it would translate into a proper game design, with its physics, mechanics, and control schemes. The idea stuck, and I turned it into a pitch to share with the rest of the team when we were reaching the final development stages of our previous project.

The initial reaction was a bit disappointing to be honest, as it was regarded as a silly concept! But the team still decided to give it a go and made a quick prototype with the basic driving. This turned out really fun to play, so we started to complete it with the trick system until we were satisfied with the feeling. After that, we brainstormed and implemented a bunch of advanced mechanics to check if the concept could be expanded into a full game, until we reached a point where we were absolutely convinced that Denshattack was the game we wanted to make!

A lot of players and press have compared the game’s energy to Tony Hawk, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Sonic rail-grinding, and Dreamcast-era arcade design. What were the biggest gameplay and visual inspirations for the team, and how did you avoid simply copying any one reference point?

David Jaumandreu: All of the titles mentioned have been some of the most important sources of inspiration while creating Denshattack!, from the revolutionary visuals of Jet Set Radio, to the ageless gameplay system of Tony Hawk or the arcade energy of Daytona USA, Crazy Taxi, OutRun 2 and other timeless Sega titles. But we’ve also been very influenced by more modern takes of these classic concepts, such as the striking presentation found in games like Hi-Fi Rush, Bombrush Cyberfunk or Persona 5 and the interesting gameplay systems found in Thumper or Olli Olli World. Of course, the king of arcade train simulators, Densha de Go!, has also been a present influence throughout development!

Rather than trying to make a carbon-copy of the visuals, controls or game systems found in these references, the team’s idea was to understand what we loved about them, what made their energy so special and why they felt so good to play. From that premise, we’ve worked to build a similar yet unique experience with our own understanding of the great ones, that made sense in a world of trains that travel at ultra high speeds and can’t stay on the ground.

Movement seems to be the heart of the game. How did you approach making a train feel fast, expressive, and responsive while still preserving enough weight and momentum to make it feel like a train

Angel Beltran, Producer & Gameplay Programmer: We always envisioned Denshattack! as an arcade game, so even though everything is on the scale of a train, much bigger than in a skateboarding game, we still wanted it to feel fast and highly responsive.

That said, we worked hard to convey the sense of weight that a 50-ton train should have through many different elements: the friction sound of the wheels against the tracks, the massive VFX when you land after a huge jump, and the destruction you cause when smashing the train into environmental objects. All of this is accompanied by satisfying rumble and camera shake, so you can really feel in your hands that you're maneuvering a massive train.

With this foundation, we then iterated extensively on the control scheme and the different movements the train can perform, always with the goal of encouraging self-expression. While we borrowed some standard movements from other trick-based games, we always asked ourselves, "What unique movements could a train have?" From that mindset, many of Denshattack!'s signature mechanics emerged, such as the unique drifting system on curves, rail-switching smashables, and, of course, the double drifting mechanic!

Movement seems to be the heart of the game. How did you approach making a train feel fast, expressive, and responsive while still preserving enough weight and momentum to make it feel like a train?

Angel Beltran: We always envisioned Denshattack! as an arcade game, so even though everything is on the scale of a train, much bigger than in a skateboarding game, we still wanted it to feel fast and highly responsive.
That said, we worked hard to convey the sense of weight that a 50-ton train should have through many different elements: the friction sound of the wheels against the tracks, the massive VFX when you land after a huge jump, and the destruction you cause when smashing the train into environmental objects. All of this is accompanied by satisfying rumble and camera shake, so you can really feel in your hands that you're maneuvering a massive train.

With this foundation, we then iterated extensively on the control scheme and the different movements the train can perform, always with the goal of encouraging self-expression. While we borrowed some standard movements from other trick-based games, we always asked ourselves, "What unique movements could a train have?" From that mindset, many of Denshattack!'s signature mechanics emerged, such as the unique drifting system on curves, rail-switching smashables, and, of course, the double drifting mechanic!

The game asks players to drift, jump, grind, wallride, flip, and chain tricks through chaotic spaces. How do physics, animation, camera behavior, input timing, and level readability all work together to make that feel smooth rather than overwhelming?

Angel Beltran: Great question! This has been one of the biggest challenges in designing the game. From the very first prototype, the "wildness" was already there, meaning the first playable version featured tons of VFX, screen shake, extreme camera movements, and more. However, it took us a while to fine-tune everything so it felt frenetic and flow-inducing without becoming chaotic or overwhelming.

To achieve this, we iterated extensively on the game's visuals, particularly its level of detail. We had to find the perfect balance between creating environments that felt beautiful and reminiscent of real Japanese locations while avoiding too much visual noise. That's part of the reason we chose a cel-shaded art style, and it worked wonders for us.

We also spent a lot of time refining the color palettes, improving visual signaling, and increasing the contrast between gameplay elements and the environment. And of course, we tested a lot with our target players to make sure we were achieving our main objective: making you feel in control of the wildest ride of your life

Denshattack! has a very colorful Japanese dystopian setting. How did the team define the art direction, and what were the main visual pillars for the world, trains, rival gangs, bosses, UI, and environments?

David Jaumandreu: To establish the art direction we started defining the energy we wanted for Denshattack!, both studying the game references mentioned before, as well as the aesthetics we wanted to bring from classic shonen anime: anything from Dragon Ball to One Piece, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Initial D or Air Gear to name a few. We explored how the game would look by creating a series of concept art pieces that represented the different scenes we would find in the game, including dialogues, map, HUD and, of course, the action itself. 

We aimed to create a colorful game, with flat shading, strong lines, black shadows, striking shapes and charismatic characters. Something that popped out of the screen but, at the same time, was clearly readable during gameplay.

Once we were satisfied with the results, we tried to replicate the mockup shots in the engine. It was our first time working with cel-shaded graphics and took us quite some work to reach the desired result, through studying different techniques and a lot of trial-and-error. It was a combination of finding the level of detail models required, the texturing system to define borders and color shapes, the correct scene lighting and how all would integrate in a consistent environment. Vegetation, in particular, was one of the aspects that required more time until we reached something we were happy with.

For rival gangs and bosses, we were inspired by real life Japanese sub-culture. We researched the different trends, tribes and fashion groups, both modern and historical, that have defined the underground movements for the last century and used all those references to shape our main characters. The turf, trains and gadgets of each gang feature elements of their way of life and the bosses are designed following these influences too, but turning everything up a notch to create a memorable battle.

What does your art production pipeline look like? What tools and workflows are used for concept art, modeling, texturing, animation, VFX, lighting, UI, and final implementation?

Angel Beltran: We had to come up with some clever solutions to make a game of this scale achievable with a team of around 12 people, while also ensuring we wouldn't run into memory constraints when building the game's largest levels.

For these reasons, creating custom textures for every single asset was completely out of the question. What we ended up doing instead was creating a set of master textures shared across all the assets in the game. This consisted of a plain color atlas for the base color, an outline texture to add the signature black lines of our cel-shaded assets, and a detail texture that allowed us to add the finishing touches, such as cracks and rust.
Not only did this ensure we could create the thousands of 3D assets the game required on time, but it also helped us achieve our goal of keeping the game readable, even at very high speeds.

With this immense library of props, we then moved on to level dressing. While the level designers defined the train's main route through each Japanese prefecture, it was the environment artists' job to ensure players could recognize the key landmarks of every region. This meant that each level was hand-crafted with great care, which was much more time-consuming than a more automated approach, but it was well worth it, as it was very important to us that every level felt like a journey through Japan, allowing players to discover its breathtaking landscapes, bustling cities, and iconic landmarks along the way. 

For 80 Level’s audience of artists and developers, what has been the hardest part of turning such a strange premise into something that feels polished, readable, and mechanically satisfying?

David Jaumandreu: There have been so many challenges when creating Denshattack! that is difficult to select just one “hardest part”, to be honest haha!

Making the game readable while going at such a high speed and yet providing a rich visual environment, is probably one of the aspects we’ve iterated most. To achieve this we’ve carefully dressed all the stages by hand, trying to visually separate the immediate track surroundings from the non-interactive scenery, by using complementary color palettes, reserved tones for the rideable tracks, environmental signaling, camera positioning and many other tricks. On top of this, we’ve also created non-diegetic signaling and sounds to aid in the experience.  

Animations and visual effects have also been key to add feedback and juiciness to the action. At first, the train felt too static so we added some basic bone animation, deformations and smears so that, even if sturdy and weighty - as a wagon should be! - the train also felt dynamic and responsive. To enhance feedback, we also created a library of dynamic onomatopoeias, flashes, speedlines and other visual shenanigans, so that every single player action had a proper screen reward (the more complex, the more spectacular!).

On the technical side, creating a high speed feeling resulted in the train moving so fast in the engine, that we often had problems with scale. To address this, we basically had to work with miniature sized trains and worlds in the engine and, still, stages have ended up being quite immense. Loading large environments and making the game always run fluidly required quite a few optimization tricks, to the point of strategically adding some mountains to the landscape so that the camera wouldn’t render the horizon in a big jump.

On the business side, it was really hard to convince a publisher that there was an interesting game behind a somewhat unusual concept. Many regarded it as something silly or just a gimmick with a lack of potential to develop into a full fleshed project. It took us over a year, lots of prototypes and many versions of our pitch to get there, but we’re so happy we finally found a publishing partner that believed in Denshattack!

David Jaumandreu, Studio and Game Director, and Angel Beltran, Producer and Gameplay Programmer, for Denshattack! at Undercoders