Killer Queen Black

Killer Queen is played by two teams of up to five players each, across two linked cabinets (a blue cabinet for Blue team, and a gold cabinet for Gold team). The game is a 2D platformer, with a shared arena which fits entirely on each cabinet's screen. There are a variety of different arenas, but all arenas have berries, gates, a snail, and a base and basket for each team. Four players on each team initially play as Workers, while one player is the Queen. Both Workers and the Queen will respawn shortly after dying.

Teams can win by fulfilling one of three victory conditions:

Killer Queen went through several iterations on its journey to the arcade, starting off as a college rec league-like outdoor field game inspired by the scent trails of ants. ” After the success of the field game, the game grew into more of a passion project. Mikros and DeBonis - under the independent game studios Sortasoft and Smashworx - started developing the digital game alongside the field game in 2011. Iterations came and went, with one idea being a projected screen and 10 players holding retro NES controllers.

It was when the two made a bet with NYU professor Charles J. Pratt, who thought the field game could not be transformed into a successful multiplayer arcade game, that the structure of Killer Queen today started to take form. By 2013, DeBonis and Mikros had an early version of the arcade cabinet ready. With a commission from the NYU Game Center, the team dove into building the game's cabinet and preparing the game for debut at the college's fourth annual No Quarter exhibition.

The arcade game was received well, finding success in bar arcades especially. It received multiple awards, including the Developer's Choice Award at 2013's Indiecade and was a finalist at the Independent Games Festival in 2015.