Minutes into it and I'm shocked it's not by the same guy behind Downwell. Everything from the pixel art, the sudden and gut-wrenching deaths, the simplistic controls contrasted by the fast action and sense of momentum, etc. Feels like it's all the basic tenants of that game in a different genre.
Anyway.
Think of it as a reverse Mega Man with a Metroid map you can scour in a matter of 5 minutes. Instead of you getting stronger when defeating one of the 5 bosses, the enemies do. Beat the bile-spitting spider boss, some enemies now suddenly shoot bile. Defeat the pterodactyl boyo? Kamikaze bees join the fray.
The audio/visual design is insanely good, too. You spawn from the last room you were in upon death, but your cone of vision shrinks and then shrinks further on your last life. Couple that with the audio cues for being low on ammo and bosses glitching out, it's tension-inducing to say the least (thankfully, you can turn down the slightly annoying last life audio distortion). However, it walks the tightrope by providing you with ammo refills at your base and before bosses, as well as a restock of lives upon either defeating a boss or delivering one of the 5 inexplicably important trinkets of power to your base. Very good balance of play for the average human bean gamer like me.
As I had implied, you can beat it in maybe an hour (accounting for some deaths). So, the 10 dollars might be a tad much, but I'd wholly recommend this on a sale.
