You might throw a hell of a lotta buzzwords at Gun Rounds. It is, directly, an indie roguelike (roguelite) bullet-hell deck builder with permadeath mechanics and tactical blah blah blah. You get the image. But in play, Blabberf’s turn-based shooter brings all these disparate phrases along with splendidly tight gun puzzles, a potent combination that simply squares up in opposition to its style contemporaries.
Gun Rounds straddles a wierd line, buying and selling in Pokemon battles by the use of Downwell‘s gunboots. Here’s the deal – you’ve obtained a deck of various weapons at your disposal, every with their very own ammo price to make use of. On your flip, you decide a spot to focus on and hearth your bullet/sword/celestial beam/rocket of selection right into a area full of shifting monsters.
Then, it’s their flip to fireplace again. While your featureless wee shooter can’t transfer freely like their foes, they’ll “block” incoming hearth will a well-timed hit on the spacebar.
See, there’s an exquisite economic system of play at work in Gun Rounds. Not solely does blocking save your well being (for those who’re good at it, at the least), nevertheless it’ll typically pay again in further ammo for hits caught. That ammo feeds again into pulling bigger assaults again into play. There’s a extra dependable “reload” perform to convey again misplaced rounds. But for those who’re not taking pictures, you’re risking extra hits for a extra packed display screen.
Blocking these pictures was by no means a certain factor, both. Early on, certain, you’re hitting easy timing challenges – however because the biomes progress, new monsters arrive to combine issues up. Jellyfish will ship swarms of their youngsters after you. Crabs may pretend out with a pulled punch, or convey two heavy hits in from the facet. Wasps shoot straight and quick, however for those who nail that dodge, they’ll take harm from their very own hit.
It’s a tightness of design that basically does recall the likes of Downwell, all the way down to even the extra speedy visible cues. It even “borrows” one of the best a part of Moppin’s cave-diver – unlockable color palettes that shift the game’s two-tone look as you push additional into its gun-puzzles.
If you’d informed me Gun Rounds got here out throughout that early 2010s indie explosion, I’d simply imagine you. It captures that era-specific vibe of crunchy pixels, laser-focused design and egregious display screen shake to a tee. Honestly, it’s most likely why this piece took 40 minutes longer than it ought to have to jot down – that type is like catnip for me, and Gun Rounds hit the candy spot.
But because it occurs, Gun Rounds got here out final week, and is obtainable on Itch.io for £4/$5.
