Bad Sector Demo

There are many good ideas coming out every day now in the video games industry, especially thanks to the expanding indie market. However, few of them get the recognition they deserve, which is quite a shame. On the other hand, being able to sell your idea and get the public interested is an important skill as well, so maybe things would work better with outside help in certain situations.

Bad Sector is not an original idea, since it takes the entire gameplay concept from classics like Qix and Volfied. On the other hand, it does have some interesting differences, as well as a smoother interface. The main goal is unchanged, on the other hand, so if you are familiar with the original games released three decades ago, then you should feel right at home in Bad Sector as well.

To begin with, the background story informs you that the board you see in front of you is actually a data storage device, and a virus is trying to infect it. Your job is to immunize the device before the virus manages to take over, which is much easier said than done. You control a line that can dash in every direction and leave a trail behind, which solidifies once you reconnect with one of the margins.

As mentioned before, you must move relatively quickly, because there is a time limit preventing you from taking as long as you want. You start with three lives and you lose one whenever an enemy touches the line trail while you move around the board. While the red enemies bounce randomly from corner to corner, the orange ones actively follow you once you decide to leave the safe zones.

There are infiltration points on the grid, which spawn more enemies on a regular basis. You can get rid of them by incorporating them in the immunization process, but the timing has to be right. As far as the graphics are concerned, the visual quality is about as basic as it was thirty years ago, or even more so. However, that shouldn’t stop you from having fun.

In the end, Bad Sector is hardly original, but it’s just as fun as the ones that came before it. The gameplay is alert and addictive, and the difficulty level is optimized to provide you with an increasing challenge with every stage you manage to complete.