Huenison Demo

There was a time when game developers had very limited resources to work with, such as a few kilobytes of RAM, or only a handful of primary colors. In spite of that, some of the most iconic video games were created back then, including Pac-Man, Super Mario, and a variety of other amazing titles. Hence, it would be pretty silly to complain about resource restraints nowadays.

Huenison is an arcade shoot ‘em up with a relatively simple idea at its core, yet the gameplay is anything but that. In short, your goal is to shoot the descending squares using same-colored bullets, while switching between colors as quickly as you can. It’s a facile idea in theory, but once you add a bunch of other elements that make your life hell, the game becomes a true challenge.

Each level introduces a new mechanic, and you have to watch out for different types of squares as well. Some transform into a different color right after you shoot them, so you have to switch and continue shooting until it is destroyed. Granted, others can actually help you, since they contain power-ups that clear a significant portion of the screen. It’s trial and error for the most part, at least until you learn what everything does.

There’s a horizontal line that slowly descends from top to bottom every time you shoot a bullet and fail to hit something. As you may have gathered, the line kills you if it touches the ship. Other times, the squares just nudge from side to side every once in awhile, which makes shooting them a lot harder.

Finally, the formula wouldn’t be complete without the retro graphics, which are about as authentic as they can get under the circumstances. Even if you can scale up the resolution to modern standards, the graphics stay the same, and they really look like something you might have seen on an old Commodore at one point. The soundtrack is brilliant as well, at least if you enjoy low bitrates.

In the end, Huenison is the kind of game that swallows you whole before you even get a chance to realize what’s going on. The gameplay is great, the controls are simple, yet challenging, and the graphics should make you shed a tear in the memory of simpler times.