Many years ago I visited AVcon with a friend, her partner, and later on another friend. One of the games showcased was a title made by a couple of people from Adelaide itself.

I was chatting to one of the devs about how the game works and the development cycle while one of the others of our group sat utterly engrossed playing it. Eventually those of us not playing realised that 20 minutes had passed, and we should move on to let someone else play.

I never did end up buying the game (but I did for a few other Aussie devs). With the recent Steam Australian Games sale I was reminded that I did not own it. Standing out in a crowd of "In Library" titles. Damn. Now I see how that other person did not realise the passage of time.

Screenshots do not do this game any justice. Watching videos give some idea, but not the full extent of it. To really understand how everything flows in this one, you need to play it.

And as a shock to those of you who know how I feel about controllers...

Play this game with a twin-stick style controller.

Rather than normal cardinal directions, you move around a central point Up/Down being replaced with moving towards the rim or hub. It surprisingly did not take long to adjust to how this works.

At its core, the game is more Avoidance than Puzzler. There are a few buttons you need to push to open up new paths, and not much more. Mazes are only a couple of rooms long, the rest us a linear path.

To mess with your head a little, there is a lot of radial wipes are the maps update and progress. Room portals/doors exist, and are nothing compared to a wipe.

A portion of the screen is the part you are playing in, and the rest is the updated next zone. Which can spin around the hub as you do, causing a clash of your easy room and the following far more difficult area.

Again, you can check out some videos of this. But you need to play it to see it.

There's a problem in that there is not that much to actually say here. Avoid getting crushed in moving black bricks. Avoid the red bricks of death.

The actual patterns are not too tough, only playing with your mind (or at least my own) when the screen is half updated and you are trying to follow a pattern.

Rooms spin and scale as the player moves. Sometimes you need to dash and avoid being hit by landing in safe spaces. Sometimes you need to just rush the whole room in a set pattern. Stepping back in any avoidance room usually means death.

Death is rarely a problem. With the exception of the final boss escape sections, you only lose a few seconds of time. And I only got stuck for a few minutes in one area. The actual final level section feels somewhat easy, though at this stage you should be trained on all the tricks the game uses.

While there is not a lot to say overall, I really do recommend this one. Not just because it is an Australian indie title. It simply is very good to slap on some headphones and work your way through the ~2hours length.

The music standalone is a nice selection ambient tracks. While playing the game, these tracks ramp up and down as the intensity builds. All while being very calm and soothing.

Seriously. As the first game I've finished in 2019, even though it was released in 2015, do check this one out!

Game Acquisition: Steam (Australian Games sale 2019)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 2 January 2019
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows Vista
Processor: 2.0 GHz
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics: GeForce 8800 or Radeon® HD4800 series, 512 MB of memory
Storage: 300 MB available space