Grade: D+
Space Invaders style game with some bugs and unsatisfying mechanics
Falling Skies is a simple Asteroids shooter game with five short levels. You fight space battles and use WASD to move around the screen while holding left click and hearing “pew pew pew” noises.
There are only five types of enemies throughout the game. I didn’t find the enemies particularly creative or exciting in design. The final Boss took me two or three tries to nail, but the attack pattern was straightforward.
- Enemy types
- Purple ships that fly straight downward on the screen, only shoot forward, and have a lot of health
- Little Red ships that fly towards you and have only a small health amount
- Asteroids
- Boss enemy minions that shoot missiles
- Boss that shoots an array of ammo all over the playing field.
Bugs and unsatisfying mechanics
There are a few times in the game where I hit bugs. I finished a level, and then it didn’t have me proceed forward. My screen resolution was buggy, and the health bar disappeared at the top.
Outside of the bugs, the powerups disappeared at the start of each level. So say I got a power up right at the end of a level, I can’t carry that shield or weapon power up into the next level at all?! It seems like an oversight that the devs would have found with more playtesting.
Lastly, when you defeat the final Boss, you get some text that flashes quickly on the screen saying something like “argh, you defeated me,” and then the player stays on the now quiet play screen. I waited to see if there were credits, another level, or something, but there weren’t. So I just quit out of the game at that point.
I had some issues between the bugs, the mechanics, and the ending. However, if you got the game in the itch bundle, it’s not a terrible way to spend 10 minutes. I wouldn’t spend additional money on Falling Skies, though, as it doesn’t seem like a completed product.
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