Smooth and bold, with a delicate, classical presentation and a spicy but brief aftertaste, Space Pips serves as a nice pre-dinner aperatif for those with a taste for Geometry Wars-style arena shooters. Control your bloodthirsty space polygon with the [arrows] or [WASD]; aim and fire with the mouse. Your shattered enemies will leave behind a twinkling cloud of valuable particles, or "pips", which should be collected and spent at the bluntly-titled "Space Shop". Press [Q] or [esc] to enter the shop and browse the upgrades. No word on what key you're supposed to push if you're steering with the arrow keys.
Space Pips borrows quite a bit from Geometry Wars, but not without giving credit. It's a somewhat casual take on the theme; you get a health bar instead of a supply of lives, and the shop lets you customize your progress to a certain degree. Two things the game really needs: an audible indicator whenever your pip total passes 100, since that's the magic number for purchases; and some visual warning when a bad guy is about to appear. When you're moving, which you always should be, you simply don't have enough time to react to some nasty critter popping into existence a millimeter from your port bow, especially when it's got a flippin' shield.
To make you feel better, collecting space pips makes a magical, soothing sound, like wind chimes. "Have some more pips," the game seems to be telling you, "the wealthier you are, the more comfortable you'll be when I kill you." What a lovely gesture. And a valuable life lesson as well!
Whoo, nice spacey-glowy-neon graphics. On maaany occasions, all I had to do was
Make one of them follow me while I'm facing back, shooting
to get lots of points :)
great game, but I have an additional complaint. there NEEDS to be a reset button. like for when you get hit by a suddenly teleporting enemy within the first 10 seconds.
Agreed. There should always be a suicide button so you can start over quickly. In games, that is.
Otherwise, very nice! I like the windchimey sounds made when you collect the pips.
It's a decent game, I guess. I really wish in games like this there was some sort of mechanism which prevented enemies from spawning literally on TOP of you while you are playing. It's pretty much impossible to avoid these kinds of enemies and taking unnecessary damage is never fun.
Additionally, the cannon/firing speed upgrades are messed up. The game states you must upgrade both before moving up to the next upgrade, but when I buy a cannon upgrade, the price on both goes up. Then, if I have, say, cannon maxed, and I buy firing speed, the speed gets maxed but the cannon DROPS a level. So I could not have both maxed at the same time.
If you are using the arrow keys to play, you press [p] to open the shop menu.
Its a neat game, but its only fun for a few moments before it quickly stops being fun and starts being frustrating.
I agree that it would be better if enemies didn't just appear. Either they should fly in from the edge of the screen or there should be an obvious warning before they appear in front of you. I had numerous occasions where I'd be shooting and my bullets would hit something before it was even on my screen, and that something would then send bits of shrapnel hurling into my ship before I can react.
The other problem is that after a certain point, the game just becomes to loaded down with things happening that it slows to a crawl where you're getting hit before you can even see what's happening, literally.
I think with a little bit of polish Space Pips would work better for me. As it is, I suddenly find myself dead without realizing my health was low. Perhaps flashing the health bar when it becomes low, or turning your ship red? I also agree with the complaints on enemy spawning. As it is, 2 or 3 out of 5 for Space Pips. With a little polish, 3 or 4. =)
The game is more zen-like if you turn off the music but keep the sound-fx on.
You know what's sad? You get a higher score by just pressing yourself up against a corner, buying up to the 3rd weapon upgrade and rapid, and the 3 helpers than by actually moving around because the spawning is so unfair.
WOOHOO!! NUMBER 1 (as of right now)
888,600 pts!!
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