Blast off into space in this arcade-inspired shmup where you don't have to dodge bullets! Fight off waves of enemies and blast away the cosmic gel!
Jessica handed me the Steam deck and told me I had to play this and you know what? I did.
This is a really cool shmup with a lot of unique ideas. The "gel" mechanic feels like a clever way to modernize Space Invaders barriers for a modern scrolling shooter; stages are littered with gel that absorbs both your shots and enemy shots, giving you places to escape them but also requiring you to clear it out to get strategic locations to shoot at enemies from. You can also fire out some gel yourself to temporarily block enemy shots.
I know for a lot of people "shmup" and "bullet hell" are synonyms, but this is an older-school non-bullet hell game for the most part. And you know what? That's not a bad thing! I play bullet hell shmups more often than not, but there's a lot you can do with less dense bullet patterns and most indies aren't exploring that space.
Apparently there'll be a story mode later, but right now it's focused on a caravan mode that feels really inspired by Eschatos. You go through a series of very short wave-based levels, and either get limited lives or unlimited lives but a limited playtime to maximize your score in. I can see myself putting a bunch of time into this once it's out.