Dead End City

Excellent game ! I'm glad I stumbled upon this one. It's one of these "easy to get, hard to master" type of game. Don't even bother to try the demo, just buy it !

This is a very well made shmup. I love that you can take a few hits and keep on ticking because I get hit a LOT lol. But the game has a lot of mechanics based around getting more fuel (EG. if your special weapon ammo is maxed out, enemies will drop fuel aka health when they die). You also get more fuel and ammo by killing multiple enemies with your special shot. So it becomes a beautiful dance of resource management and dodging bullets. Plus the aesthetics and music are on point. They also added a very fun caravan score attack mode recently. Def worth the price of admision.

Very fun and replayable

Game is tough, but that's because it was designed to be tough and that's a good thing. I recommend looking at the How to Play menu to wrap your head around the mechanics. This is a 2 button shooter though so the difficulty comes mostly from understanding the mechanics and enemy patterns. Who cares about that though? it's frikkin Galaga on wheels. Buy it. Now.

Dead End City has a nice presentation as well as a good premise for a shoot 'em up that is rarely explored. However, it's also somewhat held back with its Galaga enemy patterns, slow progression/tough unlocks and minor game play decisions for me to given it much more than a weak recommend. Dead End City hit the player with a stunning intro and rockin' music in this post-apocalypse, Mad Max style shoot 'em up. And it's a blast to play the first few play throughs. However, I quickly discovered that the game doesn't seem to want the player to move their car from the bottom of the screen. This is largely due to the Galaga inspired patterns the enemies perform as they arrive on screen and bombard the player's car. Which is also neat until the player realizes just how much that limits their movement. It was fine in the early 80s, but it feels so restrictive here. To be clear, the player can absolutely move their car up the screen. It's just the game punishes them for doing so until latter half of the stage where they drive around buildings and battle bandits that are on foot. The next thing that initially impressed me, but quickly faded was the player car fuel is their health. They only have the one life, but the game constantly drops fuel at them. At least until it doesn't, it what often feels like a lose more scenario where your car is on fumes and you just can get to fuel to drop or get in position to get it. leaving the player in a death spiral. On the other end, the player is reward with more firepower if they can manage to keep their fuel tank topped off. The whole system left me with the impression that mistake recovery is extremely difficult to do once the player gets a little ways into the game. Especially since the player's special attack is also recharged from enemy drops, and oddly enough those drops often happen from using the special attack. So, the player better be ready to get into position to catch those drops or run empty on their special attacks too. Each run provides the player with money to spend at the in game shop that allows them to unlock art, sound tests and other drivers. Those other drivers can also be unlocked by flawlessly defeating the end of stage boss as described in the shop. But as of yet, I've come no where near being able to perform a no miss even on the first stage end boss. And while I'm not great at shoot 'em ups, I do feel these challenges are a little harsh. Especially since the amount of money my people (bad shmup players) can earn isn't much. I'm already an hour into playing this game and nadda new drivers to play around with. I've beaten easier STGs in that amount of time. I don't know if I have it in me the desire to put the time and practice to unlocking these other drivers via skill or dinero. As such, I don't really care for Dead End City. But that's not to say the game is bad. Far from it. Ultimately, the game just personally rubs me the wrong way. It doesn't just about everything to keep itself from clicking with me. That said, I still recommend it. It looks and sounds real nice. The Galaga patterns are a neat throw back and not at all the whole game. I do enjoy the parts of Dead End City where the player drives between buildings and junk just before the end of stage bosses. I just found the game a little overly difficult to explore much of it without practice I'm not readily willing to give it.

A pretty sweet vertical shoot em up game with callbacks to Space Invaders and a Mad Max style presentation.

great gameplay. very addicting

This is not an ease game. Their are no "lives" like in other old school shooters like this. No check points. You die, game over, start back at the beginning, 00000 permanent progression. Your health bar constantly deplete's and you need fuel which drops from enemies. Their are unlockable characters, but you need to beat bosses without taking a hit to unlock them. Dont know if they are better then the default character, so cant say much about them. Im giving this a thumbs up because i personally like the game and do enjoy playing it despite my lack time clocked into it. The default price of 20 bucks after taxes where i am is a bit much ill admit for the content, guessing its 14.99 american, so what, 16/17 bucks after taxes im guessing. Best to wait for a sale in my opinion. 100% though you will very easily find out if this game is for you before the 2h refund window expire's, so your money is safe in the event you find this game is not for you. Fair warning though, the game has the "profile feature's limited" tag, which means the game has not sold enough copies to show off steam achievements on your profile and it wont register as one of your "games" in you games tab on your profile as a heads up. This is unlikely to change due to how old the game is now. Also its single player only as a heads up. Figured id put that peice of info here since i know multiplayer is a big thing for many even though its not for me what so ever (tis what happens when you get told to entertain yourself/learn to play by yourself all the time as a kid and you dont get along too well with your older sister during your childhood years). Thats all i got to say about this fun little indie title. Good luck, you'll need it! (says Zols in his best smash tv announcer voice).

Great fun shooter. Recommended!

Reminds me of "Demon Truck" and "Mad Max", I love it