Polydrone

Shoot ‘em ups follow a pretty standard routine when it comes to gameplay mechanics and the action itself. As such, you have to destroy enemies, improve your weapons and stay alive, all while moving from one stage to the other as quickly as possible. However, it’s still possible to improve the formula and come up with some new ideas, at least if you have a rich imagination.

Polydrone is a unique shoot ‘em up that demands a quick mind in order to be enjoyed properly. As such, the main idea is that you have to change the shape of your ship on the go in order to be able to attack your enemies. To achieve this, all you have to do is move around and juggle between different turret arrangements, which allows you to shoot in the desired direction.

However, changing shapes is not as easy at it sounds, because there is no guidance system or automatic morphing. Instead, you have to come up with your own ways to obtain the desired shape, all while enemy ships are shooting at you. It can be quite annoying in the beginning, especially until you get familiar with the controls, but the freedom is nice later on.

Enemies swarm on you from the first few seconds of gameplay, and there’s not a lot of room to dodge them or keep your distance. This means that you have to think fast and come up with a solution to every kind of attack, otherwise your turrets are destroyed and you lose the game. Granted, it takes a while until you take enough damage to be annihilated, but your survival chances drop with every shot you take.

As for the graphics, there’s nothing inherently wrong with them, and they actually look quite nice, especially when it comes to post-processing effects. However, the level design is kind of disappointing, although it’s obvious that the focus was the gameplay instead. Even so, it would have been nice to explore different landscapes.

In the end, Polydrone is not quite there yet, but it’s on the right track. More content and diversity is needed, as well as some kind of guidance on how the shapeshifting mechanics work. Other than that, this might just turn into a decent shoot ‘em up.