Operation Fungus, a game being created by Jani Nykänen, is a fast paced, adrenaline filled Shmup’ with an essence of nostalgic presence due to its bright and colourful 8-bit game design.
The game handles like your typical shoot-em-up, giving you the choices between both keyboard and mouse or gamepad (both have plus and minuses) and the difficulty will have you pulling you hair out due to heavy doses of frustration. The story starts as soon as you hit your first key, explain that the earth has been invaded by the Fungusians. Their goal in this invasion, to bring peace, love and happiness to the Earth’s inhabitants. There was peace at first, with the Fungusians living amongst the humans with smiles plastered across their faces and always willing to help out where they could. It seemed everyone loved them, except for an underground military group dubbed the Anti-Fungusian Defensive Force (or A-FDF for short). They believe that something that smiles like that around the clock surely can be always good and kind-hearted. So they create a death weapon, which you control, called Lardy O’Pumpkin. With this weapon you’re to infiltrate the Fungusian HQ (strangely located on an island in the Pacific Ocean) and find out what devious plot they are up too.
The gameplay itself is super easy to master, although using the gamepad for missions and keyboard and mouse to navigate the menus is a bit of a nuisance. The random elements of enemy spawn, bullet direction and even what each move does makes the game super hard, but ever so enjoyable. The 8-bit graphics just oozes with nostalgia, and it brought back memories of me sitting down playing the NES with my older brother. The music, composed by Oskari “h0dari” Romo, suits the game perfectly adding to the games overall feel and immersion. Operation Fungus is one of those games better suited for the hardcore Shmup gamer, or for gamers that are used to the old school difficulty of the NES era.
Note: Operation Fungus can be ridiculously tough at first, but each playthough will earn you cash which you can use on upgrades that will make things a little easier.
Download The Operation Fungus Alpha Here (Windows Only)