My Nuclear Octopus

My Nuclear Octopus

Super-fast arcade shoot ‘em up, very easy to pick up and looks amazing in an incredibly retro way. Really addictive, and highly recommended for hi score chasers.

Real player with 2.5 hrs in game


Read More: Best Action Retro Games.


Really fun little title.

Captures the early 80’s arcade feel really well.

Controls nice and looks the part.

Real player with 1.2 hrs in game

My Nuclear Octopus on Steam

Trip Saber

Trip Saber

Trip Saber is a trippy VR single-player game where you strike incoming orbs in a psychedelic atmosphere


Read More: Best Action First-Person Games.


Trip Saber on Steam

Klang 2

Klang 2

Playing this game for 59 hours, I definitely can say I adore this game. Being the first person to review this game (probably), along with getting the first two PFC’s on 60hz on two of the hardest songs in the game on fast mode (in beta release), the gameplay is insanely addicting and the music is a real banger.

The gameplay is incredibly simple with only swipes, taps, and holds, but has a fairly deep and challenging execution, especially on keyboard and mouse. Fast mode accentuates this even more, with tight timings and fast-approaching notes.

Real player with 68.6 hrs in game


Read More: Best Action Music Games.


[Won a beta key in a wishlist milestone giveaway, did some pre-launch testing.]

I have been waiting for this game to come out for five years, and did it meet my expectations?

holy fuck yes it did

Klang 1 held a very special place in my heart for mostly sentimental reasons, along with it feeling like a one of a kind experience. I have no idea how to properly express how that game makes me feel, but it was incredible. However, it lacks polish; a playthrough without encountering any bugs whatsoever is probably impossible.

Real player with 48.5 hrs in game

Klang 2 on Steam

POLYBIUS

POLYBIUS

I love this! Such simple and compulsive gameplay. Totally immersive in 2D - I haven’t got an Oculus headset - its a finely tuned audiovisual experience that tugs at your senses, while also lulling you into a trance like uber-state of feeling the force. Rushing you headlong into bizarre abstract environments that seem to stretch endlessly before you.

I love the way it gently slips you in at the shallow end encouraging exploration of each level and its diverse elements. You soon discover what makes good things happen and what does not.

Real player with 101.1 hrs in game

POLYBIUS is an arcade tube shooter within a light synth. Avoid obstacles, shoot what you can and fly through the gates to increase speed and raise your multiplier. In later levels you’ll find platforms that give you air time instead of the gates.

From the trailer I had my doubts whether I would like this game and I waited a year after the release before purchasing it. End of 2019 the prices of both Minotaur Arcade Vol 1 and Polybius dropped massively and I decided to just buy both. As I expected I struggled at first and I had to learn how to play and get a feel for controlling the ship. Fortunately you can fine tune the controller in the settings.

Real player with 30.8 hrs in game

POLYBIUS on Steam

Spinch

Spinch

LSD isn’t legal. Spinch is!

EDIT [going beyond my trivial and obvious ~joke~]

  • In my personal opinion, the game has the ideal difficulty, once it’s not hard enough to be annoying and far from being easy enough to be boring

  • The difficulty progression is also very balanced, with the game becoming more challenging while you develop your skills and get used to its physics

  • Talking about physics: it’s very unique and different from other platform games (character’s acceleration is kinda weird), but I also like it. I think it fits the lysergic experience and it becomes cool after a while

Real player with 20.4 hrs in game

Spinch is colorful, beautiful, solid, fun, and brutally punishing.

It’s been out a year and only 90 reviews? What gives?

I’d describe this as a 90s throwback with crazy psychedelic art. Each enemy, boss, nearly every part of the level is some part rainbow and flashing. It’s super psychedelic, the animations are fantastic, the whole game is a feast for the eyes. If you have epilepsy, DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME. Despite being so colorful, isometric, and somewhat busy, the levels are easily navigable and you never feel lost or that you aren’t hitting the right part of the “3D” object or determining background/foreground. Love the enemies and the art style, each level brings a new environment and themes challenges to fit. These levels are hand crafted and each one has a new piece of rainbow art to add to this strange world.

Real player with 13.1 hrs in game

Spinch on Steam

The Infinite Trial of a Hopeless Man Running

The Infinite Trial of a Hopeless Man Running

**Run.

Don’t Think.

Don’t Think About Death.

Don’t Think About The World.

Don’t Think About Your Freedom.

Eat.

Drink.

Use Toilet.

Technology Is What?

Crave Time.**

–——————–

You play as a hopeless man trapped, running in an infinite loop.

You must dodge obstacles and collect powerups to succeed.

Get a high score, and try to stay alive as long as you can!

How To Play:

  • Use arrow keys to control your character

  • Move left / right to change lanes as you wish

  • Up to jump over obstacles

  • Down to slide under things

The Infinite Trial of a Hopeless Man Running on Steam

Blorks: The Quest for Magnesium

Blorks: The Quest for Magnesium

Blorks: The Quest for Magnesium is an intense bullet-hell shooter with psychedelic aesthetics reminiscent of late 90s console titles.

Face dozens of waves of fierce foes (including rabid video cards and 8-bit Commodore computers), rescue humans, and gorge on magnesium for incredible weapon power-ups.

  • Unleash your fury at rogue CPUs, fuming archaic computers, and irritable mushrooms

  • Take out mighty battleships and deranged boomers

  • Enjoy a swanky chiptune soundtrack by Blackbella

  • Collect numerous power-ups to bolster your firepower and manage your Blork’s overheating

Blorks: The Quest for Magnesium on Steam

Clinically Dead

Clinically Dead

This is a very fun puzzling game that really makes you think! I get a lot of portal vibes from this but it definitely does a lot of unique things with its' concept. The idea is basically space=time=health, which seems simple at first, go into the blue part of the environment to move the environment into that part of time, run away from the shadow beings that take your time away, etc. etc., but this game really does capitalize on these mechanics and does a lot of clever interplay with them. I would be stuck on a puzzle for a while until I thought “what if I did this” and would be amazed every time how much the same mechanics make for different and interesting puzzles each level. On this front, the puzzling is an A +

Real player with 6.8 hrs in game

As stated by other reviewers, the graphics are simplistic but there’s a lot of effects to make it look really vibrant and trippy. It could easily bother people, but I liked it.

Puzzles are also very creative, the story takes a turn at the halfway point which ultimately leads to multiple endings.

I really enjoyed small details such as the monsters moving their jaws perfectly to the sounds they’re making, wasn’t expecting that for a game like this.

Some cons:

The menu is very, very basic. Not only does it not look good, but it doesn’t even have essential controls such as mouse sensitivity or FOV slider. I managed to get used to it after a while but my enjoyment would’ve been much better if those options were available.

Real player with 6.6 hrs in game

Clinically Dead on Steam

HEPTAGON

HEPTAGON

This is a killer game, with a killer soundtrack. Open Hexagon and Super Hexagon fans, this is the game for you.

Real player with 66.0 hrs in game

HEPTAGON is very near to being the perfect fanmade sequel to Super Hexagon. Not only does it bring the heat like never before, it also brings in totally new mechanics in every level, including changes in perspective, and red patterns that temporarily reverse your controls. In addition, each level has it own sets of difficulty (hard, harder, and hardest) that keeps the game a challenge as you refine your rotation skills further and further.

Real player with 53.7 hrs in game

HEPTAGON on Steam

Pills4Skills

Pills4Skills

Pills4Skills is a psychedelic precision puzzle-platformer that will test all of your reflexes. This is Petro Shoferystov’s first game on Steam but if you take a look on his YouTube channel he has posted gameplay videos of other games that he has designed as well (they’re also on his website). Some of them such as Project J look very interesting so I do hope that they make it past the concept and development stage and onto Steam at some point.

I tend to agree with ¡OOO67VH who despite only playing the game for about 35 minutes summed up how I feel about this one succinctly. It reminds me of VVVVVV if that game dropped acid. You need quite a bit of skill to be successful here although quite a lot of that comes from using your head as some of the levels are much easier than they appear to be.

Real player with 14.5 hrs in game

This is a good platformer, the rotation-of-the-world-gimmick is well implemented and explored in many ways. The game is difficult at times but not ridiculous. The trippiness is sometimes a hinderance.The controls are good but sometimes the jump is not as sharp as one would wish.

Real player with 8.7 hrs in game

Pills4Skills on Steam