Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Brick Breaker Remix’ and ‘NeoLite’
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Brick Breaker Remix is a recreation of an old classic by whilefun, the solo indie name for Richard Walsh of Canada. Players will get an entire experience of breaking bricks the way that it was intended; with way too many power ups.
I’ll not tread too much on the mechanics of brick breaker, for it is one of the most exposed genres of casual games; control a paddle, keep a ball bouncing and break the bricks. Each level will scale up the amount of bricks and their durability, which in turn scales up the difficulty of keeping the ball in game to maximize points.
So what is the remix in question? Well, each brick has a chance to drop a capsule containing a power up. These give the player a staggering amount of potential firepower, from multiplying the ball numerous times to giving actual lasers to the paddle. These powers do overwrite each other, however, so collecting capsules of a power that may not be wanted will not keep the old one as well. If players are wanting some more ‘challenge’, they can join the infinite mode that randomly generates the levels instead of the 34 that exist for the normal mode. Infinite levels means the possibility for infinite points, or infinite danger depending.
It’s hard to really go in to the details of Brick Breaker Remix without saying that it is exactly what any brick breaker fan might want. You get levels to play, abilities to grab and try out, and numerous input methods to use. There was even a layout for Blackberry Keyboard. I haven’t seen someone use that as a layout in years, and I had a Blackberry.
Regardless, if you love brick breakers of any ,you’ll love this. Give it a whirl.
NeoLite is a sandbox shooter created by Extrone, the indie dev from India that made Phoenix Heavy from back on page 44 of the bundle. This time around, players will fend off waves of enemies in the hopes of surviving just so they can do it all again.
Players will take control of the protagonist and, armed with a laser gun and sword, will fight off waves of enemies in a neon environment with destructible cubes and spheres. Each wave will contain increasing amounts of enemies, and it is up to how the player approaches each wave to survive. Shooting the spheres and cubes can cause them to explode and leave debris everywhere. That makes it harder for the enemies to get to you — unlike our protagonist, enemies cannot jump. Pity them.
Health is not only a resource for survival but also a resource for upgrades. Each kill nets the player ten health. Upon completion of a level they are greeted with an upgrade screen for their weapons. Upgrades cost health, which is then a handicap for the next level as players cannot regain this health before starting. This makes each upgrade a taxing decision. By making the gun better players can defeat more enemies and regain that health, but if they are swarmed too early they will die before anything can happen. It is doubly dangerous because players also start in the middle of the room, and all enemies spawn in a circle around them. Upgrades also begin to cost hefty chunks of health farther along in the upgrade tree. Since 100 is the max health no matter what, players can start a wave with less than 20 health if they are not safe.
NeoLite is not long nor is it large, but as a Ludum Dare 44 project it highlights the fun that can be had when all you need to do is survive and shoot things. If you get past the fifth wave, the sixth is an open sandbox to explore and have fun within the floating platform; consider it a reward for beating all the waves. If you like technical demos that highlight the fun that can be had in Unreal and also just want to shoot up some nameless dudes with swords, then boy do I have a game for you.
