Deathstate

« Deathstate captures the wonder and horror of Lovecraft as well as a shooter possibly could, throwing aside existential dread for overwhelming strangeness. This isn’t a genre pairing that I would have anticipated, but once again Lovecraftian horror has proven that it can work anywhere, so long as it’s produced by developers who understand and care about it. »

« It’s a long and dangerous road out of the realms between worlds, but with enough shooting and a nice selection of helpful new internal organs, you might just get strong enough to escape. »

« Deathstate is a familiar but fun roguelike. »

« WorkinMan Interactive has released a very interesting game in DeathState. It is a single stick shooter, bullet hell, rogue-like game, with RPG elements thrown into the mix for good measure. Professor Elinberg has opened a portal into the void and it is up to you to find out what has happened to him. Luckily, you have mastered the secrets of deep astral projection by entering into a fully death like state. While in DeathState, you can traverse the realms of existence that until now were only imagined, and try to discover the true fate of the Professor. But beware of the evil that lurks in the beyond. The controls of the game are simple, you use the left stick to move your character through the game. The game will automatically shoot at the closest enemy, leaving you only to worry about moving through the level and dodging incoming attacks. The right stick is used to dash - this will help you maneuver quickly from the hordes of enemies that you will encounter and their neon green balls of hurt. The X button will control your magic attack - each character has a different magic ability. And the Y, B, and A buttons will be used for items that you pick up on your adventure across the realms. You can use keyboard controls - substituting A,W,S,D for the left stick and the arrow keys for the right stick. This made the game even harder in my opinion, but everyone has their gaming style. Game play is fairly simply - teleport into the void, kill enemies, find the portal to the next layer, don't die, rinse and repeat. But it is that don't die step that always gets in the way. As you are fighting enemies in front of you and retreating from their attacks, you will often stumble into more enemies that were lurking behind you adding to the fray you are involved in. You also cannot slow play the levels, as there is a limited amount of time to get to the portal to the next layer. Reflexes, and situational awareness are key to survival and advancement. Lucky does hurt either, as there are items to be found that will help you on your quest. As you play through the game you will encounter 80 different items to unlock. That number does not include the multitude of Ancient Tomes, Weapons and Potions that you will find. Also after defeating a boss, they will drop an organ that you can ingest to empower your character on their journey. You will also unlock new characters, with new special attacks that will aid you in defeating the more difficult levels. The graphics for the game are like the game itself - a mix. The game is rendered in amazing 16 bit, giving it a truly retro feel. But it also uses shading from Unity to add really cool lighting effects into the game that cast an ominous tone to it. The mixture of the old and the new, elevate the game to a higher level. The sound effects and music also do well at lending a hand to the creepy tone and fast paced action of the game. There are 38 achievements for you to score in the game, and grabbing them all will not be easy. Many are based on you playing as each of the different characters. You will also have to beat the game 2 times in a row to grab one of the even more difficult ones. But don't worry, you score an achievement when you die 100 times, so you are always working towards a goal. »