Jydge is a more focused game, using the Neon Chrome engine, destructibility, and cyberpunk aesthetic. Neon Chrome is among my favorite rogue-likes and action RPGs. Have I been to this part yet? If the furniture is shattered, the walls are shattered, the floors are charred, and blood is splattered everywhere, then, yes, I’ve been through here. The levels have the glorious destructibility that reminds you when you’ve been through an area. It’s a crawl, something stealthily, through cyberpunk dungeons. Between permadeaths, you pour money into improved attributes. You’ll find new weapons and abilities which get shuffled into the random loot. Neon Chrome is a full-fledged action RPG rogue-like with lots of advancement as you play. Since Crimsonland, they’ve reined it in a bit, gotten more numbers-oriented, more meticulous, with an emphasis on advancement, both in the twin-stickery and between the twin-stickery. I’m pretty sure Crimsonland explored all of them, as well as a few that had never occurred to me. There are only so many ways you can make stuff blow up. Their original, Crimsonland, was a balls-to-the-wall swarm management game with crazily over-powered power-ups that were crazy and powerful and overpowered and sometimes crazy. Using the basic vocabulary of pushing sticks around to shoot and move, 10tons made several distinct gameplay experiences over the years. With Tesla vs Lovecraft, they’ve gone back to their first love. Since then, they’ve done various workaday projects - anyone for a round of Sparkle 2 on the iPad? - but their heart is clearly in the top-down wholesale slaughter of innumerable dumb enemies. And if you ask me that sounds like a recipe for a wonderful evening.10tons Ltd., an indie developer in Finland, has been making twin-stick shooters since 2003, when they released Crimsonland. The old ones might have awoken from their millennia of slumber, but you've got a gun that fires magic electric bullets and an X-ray sword that cleaves beasts in twain. From the theme of a slightly mad scientist taking on armies of terrifying creatures from beyond our time, right down to the swarms of beasts that bear down at you from every angle - madness and magic going hand in hand.įans of 10Tons other games are going to lap up everything that this one has to offer, but if you've been left a little cold by the neon-hued cyberpunk of the dev's other games, then you should still consider picking this one up. It's that mixture, that's laced through every single thing the game does, that keeps it interesting. But you'll keep trying all the same, because the action here is balanced almost perfectly between insanity and magic. You're going to smash up against the first boss a good few times before you manage to take it down. The game gives you all you need to win, but it never makes things easy for you. Oh, and I forgot to mention the giant mech that Tesla can build with parts you'll pick up as you jog around the map. They stack as well, so the longer you're alive, the more powerful you're going to get. You level up during each game, and at every level you can choose one of two different perks. They slow down time, or set your bullets on fire, or they're just a small nuclear bomb that kills anything on screen in a shower of horrid purple gore. They give you extra XP, which in turn lets you unlock new perks quicker. Then you've got the power-ups you can pick up. You've also got a super move bound to a double tap of the shooting stick. Double tap on the movement stick and you'll zip off in a flash of lightning, reappearing almost instantly a few feet away. First and foremost in your arsenal is a device that lets you teleport. Luckily though you've got plenty at your disposal to stop them with. Your starting weapon is little more than a pea-shooter though, especially once the game lets go of your hand and starts throwing massive numbers of dribbling ghouls to try and chew your face off. Your job is to kill absolutely everything. The stick on the left of the screen moves you around, the stick on the right aims and fires your guns. And also fell in love with a pigeon (I'm not joking about that, seriously - smash a goog on it).Īfter a brief bit of narrative, you're dropped onto a small map. You're playing the man who invented electricity. So I suppose it's good you're not playing a normal man. Because the thing about the monsters in the Lovecraft-mythos is that you can't beat them, or even understand them, in any way known to normal man. Tesla vs Lovecraft understands that perfectly, weaving that adversity into its theme as well as its levels. You can see how hopelessly outnumbered you are at all times - you're a tiny speck in a swirling vortex of chaos, and the only thing between you and a grisly end is your gun. There's an inherent desperation to top-down, twin-stick shooters.
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