TEXNOPLAZM

Talk about drive—*this* is drive! Damn, it’s a mix of, say, *Ghostrunner* and *Mirror’s Edge*, plus something else entirely. It’s absolutely badass! And another thing: the soundtrack by Mothership Loudspeakerz hits incredibly hard. The guy blends psytrance, acid, and jungle, occasionally mixing in darker tracks. Masterful stuff.

very good

You may not know this, but the dev (ML) is a single guy working on this game. Game design, map design, music, the lot of it. For a solo effort (and his second game), I'm really impressed and having a lot of fun with what he's put together so far. The quick and dirty is this is a first-person beat-em-up, with elements much like Devil May Cry. Parry, counters, air juggle, dodge, shoot weapon, throw weapon. But everything has been stripped down to the fundamentals and I really welcome this. It's easy to get sucked into a vortex of high combo counts but this game isn't really about that...especially since the narrower FPS view makes threat management much more different than a 3rd person beat-em-up, so the mechanical simplicity of the fighting balances it rather nicely between twitch skills and positioning. I can't really think of many other boomershoot-esque games that have managed to balance this so elegantly. The fact that all melee weapons and guns deplete rather quickly adds another element of resource management and tactics. What do you save your precious bullets and weapon durability on? Shoot the flyers (hate hate hate)? Or the snipers? Slash the minibosses to burn them down quickly? Or parry them with what's left of the weapon so you can open them up for unarmed combat? All decisions you make on the fly while playing this. The difficulty ratchets up pretty consistently from stage to stage, and it's well paced (so far). The environments are for the most part dark and gothic, but there's enough color and lighting that helps with the variety, and the signposting is well done - I rarely get lost or lose momentum moving through the levels. Fight arenas are big enough and enemy count/types are balanced appropriately for the sizes of the engagements. It's not always perfect, but fits a lot of the time. And the crown jewel of the presentation is, for sure, the sound design and music. ML has been making electronic music for over a decade and he really understands that for a low-poly "retro-game" the sound design does a ton of heavy lifting. Music often sells the atmosphere better than any visual effects, and good sounds make for instantly recognizable cues. This game has excellent, pounding electronic music and good gameplay sound design. An unblockable attack sounds different than a blockable attack, you know instantly when you've killed all enemies in an encounter, and you also know when those *&#$#@ flyers show up to ruin your day. I can continue but I'll just say if this game looks fun to you, you should go get it. Splattering goons and minibosses while taking no damage to a killer electronic soundtrack is a great way to relax after a long day for me. Can't wait for the full release!

I already had the opprtunity to play the demo of this game, and I must say it is a step-forward in comparison to Ghostware. The Gameplay is Dynamic and the soundtrack is fire. What else I can say?

great game but I have no idea when more content is coming

hidden gem

Can't wait for more!

Good melee, good visuals, good mood