Cryolancer

Shoot ‘em ups are a thing of the past nowadays, mainly because they are probably not as fun when we already have a lot more complex games out there. However, the simplicity is the reason they are so addictive. That and the insane difficulty level. As such, the genre is not quite dead yet, since there are always new titles coming to light, especially from indie developers.

Cryolancer is about as simple as it gets in the genre, and it doesn’t even feature the mandatory bright colors that make everything on the screen impossible to follow. Instead, it’s a lot slower and somewhat more tactical, in the sense that you have to analyze your shots in order to inflict maximum damage. Even so, the simplicity can also cause you to get bored after a few minutes.

To begin with, the entire thing takes place somewhere up in the sky, although not in space, because you can still see clouds in the distance. There are multiple, repetitive waves you have to learn how to predict, but it’s not that difficult, because the pattern is always the same. Hence, you should be familiar with every wave after only a handful of resets.

Some of the ships you destroy have the potential to drop something useful, such as a weapon upgrade that splits your shots into three, or a health pack that instantly grants you maximum hitpoints. However, the sure way to keep acquiring energy and unlocking the two powerful weapons at your disposal is to keep shooting enemies. Thus, you can then use the other weapons to freeze the ships and watch them collapse on top of the others, making your job a lot easier.

As far as the technical side is concerned, there’s nothing to admire or be impressed with. The ships and the environments are very basic, yet smooth and not annoying to look at over long periods of time. Even so, the lack of multiple levels, more types of enemies and maybe a few explosions here and there would make the experience a lot more fun.

Cryolancer is not much of a game at the moment in regards to content, but some of the ideas are quite nicely implemented. Hence, with enough work and dedication, the project could take off in the future.