Static (Game of the Day)

Game of the day: Static, by ihavefivehat

Duck and dodge the hellfire of unyielding squares in ihavefivehat’s latest game. Static sees players scrambling for their lives in a bleak, noised-out world. The second you come to, you’ll be ambushed by murder-eyed pink cubes that push wads of blue static at you as you writhe and flail about. It’s kill or be killed, and you’ve got nothing to your name but your gun and a trigger, a handy machine that wavers, well, unwaveringly between short range shotgun blasts and long range rapid fire. Shooting your gun puffs out a canonfire of pixelated spaghetti noodles, and enemies erupt into scattering cubes, which all makes for heart-racing exultations when it goes the way you want it to.

I’m not sure if the levels are hand crafted or generated on the fly, but either way Carr has ensured that they contain pockets of relative safety, without ever feeling safe. Death dangles at the corners wherever you go. Moving between levels, too, involves a fist-pumping plunge to the new story. It’s a nice breath between the fights, in which players can at least attempt to gather themselves, if only to be disrupted by a fresh onslaught of charging enemies.

All told, it’s a thing of joyous chaos. See for yourself.