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The horde is relentless. Every time I naively rely on the timing of my laser sweeps and think I finally have the advantage over my enemies, the next wave comes tenfold just to put me back in my place. I crush them, they come back stronger and overtake me, and our little dance begins again.
In A Playdate game created by Pulp creator Shaun Inman, it’s just you and your overheating space laser against the world. From the game’s description:
The lights in the sky are going out. A massive shell surrounding a sick star is the last bastion of a civilization witnessing a cosmic extinction event. But at the edge of the darkness lurks a horde driven mad by darkness, determined to extinguish the last glimmers of light.
Your task is to defend the sphere from attackers by using the crank to control the direction of the laser beam and “A” to fire. You can hold “A” to trigger a continuous laser blast, but this is a time-limited action: after a few seconds, your laser will overheat and be unusable until it cools down, leaving you completely vulnerable. To avoid this, you can instead fire in short bursts to save energy. But when tiny, high-speed enemies attack you en masse, good luck trying to take them down individually. When all else fails, you can deploy a bomb to take out a large number of enemies at once.
There are ways to upgrade the sphere that will give you a better chance of containing the swarm. After destroying the ships, you can salvage their materials and use the currency you get at the end of each level to purchase upgrades and make repairs. One add-on will reduce the laser’s cooldown, while another will strengthen your shield.
With the overheating/cooling element, every decision seems high stakes and Laser sphere The result is a hugely engaging little action game. (Mike Freuden’s music is pretty solid, too.) There are enemies of varying sizes, each type moving at a different speed, and you really have to stay on your toes to make sure you’re making the best use of your laser for the most pressing threat at the moment. Otherwise, you’ll be left without a weapon when twenty or so attackers are right on top of you. You can get Laser sphere on the Playdate catalog for $6.