Horizon Shift '81

1981 indeed. As someone old enough to remember well both the year and the games of the time, Horizon Shift '81 has the feel and cleverness of early '80s arcade shooters down pat. Except, oddly, for the music. Not only doesn't it sound like it they tried to emulate vintage equipment, the music itself isn't even fitting of the time. Quite jarring, so off it goes. Otherwise it's a really solid arcade shooter, using a center line and an up/down mechanic where your ship either shoots up or down from that center line depending on where the enemies are coming from. There are boss battles, bonus stages, power ups, bombs, the ability to jump and slide -- maybe a bit too much, honestly. Still, it gets an eager "next quarter up" from someone who's been playing games of this type since Space Invaders. 8/10

[b] Target Audience: [/b] [I] SHMUP fans wanting a little bit of a twist[/i] [b] Summary: [/b] Horizon Shift 81 follows in the footsteps of the original Horizon Shift, and that's a good thing. It's not going to be a game that's going to blow anyone out of the water: a lot of the components work well in conjuctions and are smartly designed, but nothing that you'd write to home about. With that said, what the game does well is twist the formula of standard SHMUP gameplay with the middle of the screen presentation, along with interesting gameplay mechanics with the dash and having to balance the sides of the screen and your movement area. This leads to interesting challenges and point-gaining opportunities that's fun at a good difficulty, even if the levels aren't random or procedurally generated. The fact of the matter is, this is a good change of pace compared to most games in the genre and will get you several hours of entertainment, which is good for the cheap price of the game. [b]Video Stream/Gameplay Footage: [/b] https://youtu.be/zsE11hB0kxk [u] Lists: [/u] [b]Positives:[/b] [list] [*] All components work well together in a great synergy, each complementing the next. [*] Unique “gameplay” area with the middle bar adds new challenges while still feeling familiar in the genre. [*] Dash feature in conjuction with jumps allows for some good variation in dodging. [*] Reasonable enemy variety that pose new problems. [*] Good pacing in levels to help keep that variety up. [*] Nice selection of weapons and powerups. [*] Good accessibility with checkpoints/difficulty WITHOUT skipping the challenge portion. [/list] [b]Negatives:[/b] [list] [*] Keyboard/Mouse controls seems to be present, but no bindable keys nor description of what keys do what. Don't know what the dash keys are. Bindable keys would go a long way here. [*] Sound Design for the most part is underwhelming. [*] Not a game that will have enough variety over 10+ hours, more like 3-6. [*] While usually something I overlook, the pixel graphics presentation at times is very underwhelming, especially with some weaponry and it blending into the screen. [*] Missing options regarding flashing/etc that can help those with flash-sensitivity. I know this sounds like a nitpick, but it is a big option now a days. [/list]

[b][i]Shoot ’em up аркада с атмосферой ретро. Уничтожаем все, что появляется на экране кораблем, который может не только двигаться вдоль горизонтальной линии и стрелять вверх и вниз, он может прыгать и делать рывки в стороны.[/i][/b] Геймплей: https://youtu.be/ZMK277ZLhFQ Прыжками и рывками можно подбирать бонусы и уничтожать врагов. За такие убийства дают больше очков, но вы рискуете разбить корабль. В игре три вида выпадающих бонусов: новые виды оружия, усиления для корабля и дополнительные очки для таблицы лидеров. Если астероиды долетают до линии передвижения, они ее разрушают, но она со временем восстанавливается. Линия может перемещаться вместе с кораблем вверх или вниз экрана. Кроме этого иногда меняться камера обзора, что дезориентирует и усложняет прохождение. У корабля есть шкала бомб, при накоплении которой можно уничтожить всех врагов на экране и восстановить линию передвижения. + Ретро-атмосфера. + Современные световые эффекты. + Крутой музон. + Увлекательный, сложный, динамичный геймплей. + 3 режима и настраиваемый уровень сложности. + 3 вида выпадающих бонусов. + Боссы через каждые 5 уровней. + Таблица лидеров. + Достижения.

Horizon Shift '81 is a little retro themed shmup surprisingly well made despite a few little bugs. [b]Ship[/b] Your basic ship can shoot, move horizontally, flip vertically, jump, dash and release a bomb when your power meter is full. With a dash you move quickly left or right and knock out any small enemies, bullets and hit bigger enemies standing on or moving through your horizon line. If you fall through a hole in your horizon line a flip will let you fall in the opposite direction allowing you to save your ship. [b]Levels[/b] The levels, 36 in total, are very well balanced with increasing difficulty, they start out easy and short and before any wave can become too repetitive a new wave sets in. Every 6th level is a boss level. Even though most enemy waves are scripted there are random elements like weapon upgrades and where the aliens drop you need to save. This keeps the game fun while playing levels over and over trying to progress or improve your scores. [b]Bonus level[/b] When you've saved 5 aliens you get a bonus level at the end of your current level. You need to clear a field of blocks arkanoid style which unlocks an enemy you then need to hit a couple times. It's pretty hard compared to the game itself but when you succeed you get an extra life. [b]Modes[/b] There are six modes to play the game in. Arcade Start the game with 3 lives. Checkpoints on and after the boss levels. Arrange Start the game with 1 life. Checkpoints on every level. Boss Boss levels only. Free Unlimited lives but score halves when you die. Hyper Start the game with 1 life on 150% game speed. Speed up Start the game with 3 lives with increasing game speed. [b]Bugs[/b] Pausing will sometimes crash the game. It's showing 'trial version' in the right bottom corner. Triggers don't work but you can assign keys to it. See the relevant thread at the forum. Complete Boss mode and your score won't go on the leaderboard. I don't know if it's the same for the other modes. [b]Afterthought[/b] I find it odd both easy and normal mode share the same leaderboards with no score advantage for playing in a higher difficulty or with a higher game speed afaik, I may be wrong. The bonus levels seem a bit hard in comparison to the main game and since it's a matter of luck completing one getting an extra life for it seems unbalanced. Mostly so in Arrange mode since you start with just the one life. [b]Conclusion[/b] It took me quite some hours to complete the game in arcade and arrange mode. Getting all the remaining achievements took a few more hours, especially the hyper mode achievement is pretty challenging. Afterwards I still enjoyed playing the game for high scores in the different modes. It won't keep me entertained for much longer but I may come back to it later. Definitely worth the money I paid for it on sale. Here are two recordings of runs I had in arcade and arrange mode: https://youtu.be/VfFf4oa-N7Y https://youtu.be/XbkQZlf1bsA

Horizon Shift '81 is a fun, if uneven, neo-arcade game with a compelling core loop. It's slightly inferior to the first one, but hits most of the right nostalgia points. The reason I can't recommend it is simple - there's a Unity "trial version" overlay in the bottom right corner, which has existed since 2019 and will likely never be fixed. Leaderboard support is also disappointing, you can only see the first 10 results and there's no real-time ticker to show progress as you play. I enjoy Flump's work, and it's not terribly expensive - especially on sale, but the missing polish pushes this to a no for me. If you find the premise intriguing, just play the original Horizon Shift.

Howdy folks, Shaun Meyers here to share some thoughts on Flump Studios' latest title, Horizon Shift '81. I've been playing Flump Studios' games for quite a few years now and I can safely say that Horizon Shift '81 is their best work yet. The game is an arcade shoot 'em up, so it's a bit of a niche game and likely not going to be for everyone. It combines aspects of various classic arcade games, like the enemies you face, and puts it's own twist on them. There's multiple game modes to choose from and you can alter the gameplay settings yourself if you so choose. You can make the game faster paced, more difficult, choose a starting level, among others. Gameplay wise, it's a lot of fun. Enemies come in many different shapes and sizes. A lot of them, you'll recognize from classic arcade games like Centipede and Asteroids. After completing a few levels you'll have to face a boss battle. Bosses have a variety of different attack styles and as the battle progresses, they change things up and often get faster. After each boss, the game ramps up the difficulty and it's sometimes better to start a few levels behind where you left off so you can acquire better power ups to take down the tougher enemies with. There's various power ups to choose from, including turrets, an orbiting turret, many different types of weapons and a reverse turret to name a couple. If you're familiar with arcade shoot 'em ups, you shouldn't have too much difficulty with the game. New players shouldn't have too much difficulty either since the game starts off pretty easy so you can learn the basics. Overall, I had a lot of fun with the game, and it should please fans of arcade shoot 'em ups. Definitely worth picking up if you're in the market for something new. I give the game a 9/10, an excellent release.

It's like all of your favorite retro arcade games, blended into one. Still feeling fresh, you protect your line in the middle, jumping, dashing and switching sides. Difficult like most arcades. https://youtu.be/r8D89Xx-dvk

Un lindo fixed shoot em up con mecanicas frescas ideal para los nostalgicos, agarralo de oferta.-

Tout à fait Génialissime,bien speed,d'un genre peut commun,de nombreux défis,tu peux sauter dascher,tirer en haut en bas ,ça vient par la gauche,puis par la droite ! attention voila le Boss!!A en perdre la tete.Je conseil,on ne s'ennuie pas avec ce super jeu au style Rétro ! ! !

Awesome retro shooter with a new age feel to it!! Highly recommend this game to anyone loves shooters !!!!