PEGBJRE: Switch ‘N’ Shoot and Cardinal Chains
Tiny, Clean and Minimalistic.
Switch ’N’ Shoot is a small bullet hell arcade game by Matt Glanville, a dev out of the UK. As a peon in Earth’s space defense, players as a generic space fighter are tasked with defending their home planet from alien invaders who seemingly move towards them and then just kind of explode. Thankfully, players have their super spaceship that can blast them away with a single shot with only a mild setback; the shooting and steering seem to be linked together somehow. Every time the player wishes to shoot, their ship begins to go in the opposite direction. How will they be able to fight off the hoards now?!
While the above is quite melodramatic, in reality SNS is a game of simplicity and fusion, combining the players ability to shoot with the change of direction. Players don’t control how fast the ship moves, or any vertical movement — they only get one button. Players can choose to push any button, and can change which one they want to use as they go. Maybe players start with the arrow keys for better understanding, but get tired of it and switch to just the spacebar. While a bold move mid combat, the Federation will allow it. After all, players are just random generic starships and can be easily replaced.
Make no mistake, players will go through a ton of random generic characters because death is constant. Aliens only need to hit a spaceship once to utterly annihilate their score and the entire run, forcing them to start over. At first, I didn’t really ‘get’ the whole one-button-shooty aspect of the game, so it is safe to say that I lost many brave fighters for my ignorance. Thankfully restarting a new game is quick and simple, so there’s no need for downtime. It’s still brutally difficult, as expected from a title inspired by older arcade games, but thankfully I don’t need to pay quarters to start a new run (yet).
I mentioned SNS as tiny earlier because it doesn’t come in the way of customization as many modern arcade games tout. Ships are essentially the same because there is no reason to feel attached to a ship or the name of the fighter seeing as they’ll probably be destroyed in a few moments. It’s fast, it’s simple, and it can be picked up and put down at any time without hesitation. If you’re looking to relive the glory days of Galaga but thought it was too ‘easy’, then Switch ’N’ Shoot may be the title that keeps you occupied. It’s clean, its consistent, and above all else, it kills you constantly.
Cardinal Chains is a puzzle game made by Daniel Nora, self-proclaimed occasional indie dev. Players are given a simple tileset in front of them with a singular goal: fill in the entire grid of colours by linking numbers in a non-decreasing order. There is no timer, there is no death, there is only a solution to the problem. As solutions begin to pile up, so do the number of colours used to link the grid. Stuck on a solution, or accidentally screw up? Refresh the puzzle and go again.
While I may be a self-proclaimed ‘sucker at puzzles’, there was something about Cardinal Chains that felt different. Perhaps it was the simplicity of its nature, or the satisfaction of seeing the grid full of colour. Perhaps it was the nostalgic reminder of the brainteaser number puzzles I used to do as a kid such as sudoku, how it lacked any pretense of being anything but a puzzle game. Whatever the case may be, there’s an addicting feeling being exploited here, reminiscent of the 1024 mobile game and other puzzle games with bright colours utilizing numbers in some kind. The sense of ‘what could come up next?’ constantly drives forward to the next puzzle, to see how it could evolve from the last one. Will there be more colours? Will there be larger numbers to sequence? Will the grid be a different shape? Only a solution will bring the next problem
Cardinal Chains doesn’t have much to talk about, if I’m honest — it offers a clean environment to solve a number and spatial puzzle sequence, and there are 500 of these that were hand crafted to stump players. Retries are quick, time is nonexistent and there is nothing stopping you from quitting and coming back at any time. I personally played it on PC, but this would be a fantastic time killer on my phone as it is available on the app store for both iOS and Android. If you’re looking for a mobile puzzle game to fill the void during commutes, or have a few minutes at home during the day to solve a few, then this is definitely the game for you. I’d also encourage recommending it to those looking for ‘brainteaser’ style games, typically adults of all ages looking to keep their brain active during some of the more dull periods during a workday. You’d be amazed what the brain can do.
