Szczypce, a game created by Insecure Shark (Bartłomiej Sieczka & Piotr Bartosiak) for the Ludum Dare 34 challenge, is a tricky shmup game where you pit yourself against countless enemy units, assimilating more and more weaponry as you attempt to rack up a high score.
You start out as a tiny orb, and you’re given simply instructions on how to control said orb. In a few quick seconds you fling your grappling hook out and grab the nearby item, only to find out it’s a gatling gun. Before long other ships planning to absolutely decimate you come flying on-screen. Feeling as powerless as you are you try your best regardless to take on the encroaching armada with the tiny little gatling gun given to you. It then finally happens, you manage to take down an enemy flyer but only remnants of the ships is its gun floating slowly in front of you. An idea comes clawing out of your brain “Maybe I can use their weapon and drop my stupid one!”. So without hesitation you do so, expecting your weapon to disconnect as the new weapon replaces it, however this is not the case this time. Instead the weapon assimilates to your ship. Not only do you have you silly little gatling gun, but you also have the gun of your dead adversary.
The game is incredibly fun, even if repetitive at times. The ability to take every weapon a dead enemy drops is a great mechanic that’s deliciously chaotic, starting off with only a single gun then a few moments later you have a tower of them strapped to one side of your ship. It’s amazing how fast you can lose yourself while playing too. The subtle music (from Kevin MacLeod) isn’t to over the top and puts you inside the game itself. The rage only starts to boil once you realise it’s score based and you start gunning for top spot.
After the dust settles Szczypce is a fantastic shmup with a never-ending swarm of bad guys just waiting for you to pick them off and make yourself stronger. Within minutes, you’ll be the one unleashing bullet hell!
Download Szczypce Here (Windows, Mac & Linux)