Well now... this is certainly a strange one. Now, I've been a fan of Phr00t's games for a long time now, and have played most of them. Going into any of them, I know to expect some surreal procedural weirdness, which is something that I really like but that most developers dont seem fond of doing (which is a shame). I can think of only a few that are willing to make this sort of thing. Phr00t though is one of them, and this game doesnt break the trend of creative bizarrity.
How do I even describe this one? Okay. So, think of Smash Bros, right? Nintendo's wild fighting game, where instead of smacking your opponent until they pass out, you try to knock them off the stage to score a KO. Well, it's like that, except in first person, and you punch eyeballs, except instead of punching you sorta throw rocks kinda? And it's all procedural and you have an inventory. Sometimes there's a boss or you solve a riddle, because why not.
The game does a good job of explaining the basics. Your only true goal is to ascend, clearing 30 levels to end the run. However you're also after a high score here, but how you go about things is up to you. Each floor has portals that lead to the next one, but the portal activator has some sort of condition. Maybe you have to find a star in a crate, or maybe you have to knock at least 5 weirdos off the stage. Whatever it is, you'll traverse astonishingly strange landscapes in your pursuit of that goal. Most levels are combat levels, but some will involve friendly eyes that give hints as to some sort of riddle, and you solve that instead.
Traversing the different levels is an experience, that's for sure. These places sure arent boring, being a huge tangle of ramps, floating platforms, jump pads, and so on. Phr00t's games, in my opinion, have always been very good at creating levels/worlds that I actually like exploring, and this game does that too. However, it really takes some getting used to. At first you can expect to be VERY confused and get lost easily. After awhile, you'll get the hang of it though. To help you out, these little green signs are posted everywhere, pointing in the direction of various things. Learn to pay attention to those and your progress will get much easier.
Each level will be populated with lots of eyeball dudes. While sometimes they will fight each other, they will prioritize you if they spot you. As is typical of games from this developer, they can attack from a seriously extreme range. These arent enemies that have limited vision range. The more damage you take, the further you'll be knocked back when you get hit, and the same with the eyeball guys. You can tell how damaged they are by the fact that they get more and more red as you hit them, so it's easy to keep track of how much damage you've done, and to which enemies. These guys are everywhere, and you're never safe. What's more, some of them can cast nasty status effects, giving you all the more reason to learn to dodge them.
Fortunately, that's not all there is in each level. All sorts of things are there for you to find. You have health recharge stations, and a station to undo status effects on each level... so pure attrition isnt going to kill you. Getting a bit beat up early in the game cant ruin your entire run, which is good. Items of all sorts can be found lying around too. You have an inventory and can hold many of them at once (easily accessed with the mouse wheel). There's all sorts of weapons, potions, passive effects, and so on. These often have some randomization applied to them, so you never quite know what you'll get, particularly with weapons. Whenever you fall to your doom, you'll respawn with full health, but you'll lose a random item out of your inventory.
Interestingly, there is no true lose condition. This seems a bit strange to me, but it works out in the end. You decide when you think you've lost. If you've lost enough items that you just feel you're too weak to get further, that's a time to quit. If you feel you can persist and overcome, you can do so. It's an odd design decision, but one that I've seen before.
The difficulty overall is pretty high. Enemies are aggressive, with fast shots that arent so easy to dodge. Defending yourself isnt just about dodging, but also positioning and angles, so that when you do get hit, you're less likely to end up falling. Like everything else in the game, combat takes alot of getting used to. Fortunately there are no issues with the controls or anything.... mostly. The ONE major thing that bugs me about the game: There's no settings for mouse sensitivity. It's not THAT big of a deal really, and doesnt stop my enjoyment of the game, but it's still annoying. The one other, less major thing that bugs me is the portals. Portals that go to the next level, and portals that go to the previous one, look exactly the same, except for the beam that shoots out of them. It's easy to accidentally wander into the wrong portal if you're not paying attention to that beam. It's a fairly minor issue to be honest... it mostly stopped happening for me after about 20 minutes, but it was still annoying.
Overall, this is a fairly simple and easy to understand game compared to some of the other ones. It's not like the X089 series where there's a zillion stats and a gigantic workd to deal with. This is a much more arcadey affair, not a gigantic adventure like those are. However, it does have the same "feel" that Phr00t's games usually do, if that makes sense. And again, this is fantastically strange... there just isnt anything else that plays like this, and there isnt much else that looks like it either. As such, it's a very niche game. You might really like it, or you might really hate it. I personally quite like it, it's definitely my sort of thing, even if it can be frustrating at times. I find myself coming back to this developer's games fairly often (particularly as they work on my junky other computer) and this one is likely to be no different.
