PEGBRJE: Manual Intervention and Record Store Nightmare
Welcome to 54!
Manual Intervention is a base defense game created by Spannerworx, an indie developer in the UK. Players are following the new recruit Manny, having gotten through much of his initial training to become an automated missile operator. Unfortunately something has gone horribly wrong with their systems just as a strange fleet of ships begins attacking settlements. So it is time… for a manual… intervention. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Using an input device of their choice, players will attempt to stop the missiles that are careening towards the domes of each planet by sending out interceptor missiles and blow them up. Players need to accurately guess where the missiles are headed, and select where they think their missiles will need to be to blow up at the exact time to also blow up the others. The trick is that this is a 3D space, meaning that the planets are all curved making trajectory difficult to fully understand; the orange missile silos are on the surface but the enemy missiles are taking a three dimensional path utilizing gravity and thrusters to reach each destination on an angle. This is best highlighted when an enemy missile is about to hit a settlement, but the player’s missile still goes up in to the atmosphere first before shooting over.
This is all a bit complicated — its physics after all — but there are quite a few systems in place that can assist with the main one being ‘target closest’. Players have multiple missile silos that they can select to fire missiles from, although they do share the energy resource across them all. By pressing this ‘closest button’ (ALT on keyboard), a purple line will appear with a targeter to give players a guideline for the closest missile to hitting, along with selecting the silo that would be best to fire. Now I must say that this can mess up perceptions a bit, as it will only alternate to another missile when the initial one is destroyed, meaning that any other close ones might get accidentally ignored by the player since they cannot automatically target them until it is too late. It becomes better over time to make educated guesses than to always rely on the targetter, especially as missiles start coming thick and fast. There is also the ability to ‘speed’ up a missile pre-launch at the cost of energy, but this can help in those panic-moments which will be happening way more often than .
Thankfully, this is where the next set of assistants come in; tech. Tech are the extra powers of the player, ones that allow for emp shots to destroy 50% of the missiles or bolster shields. These are available over time (or immediately if in a custom game) and have their own cooldown tied to the tech stations on the planet. Just like settlements, keeping these alive is imperative to the mission and contribute to the final score of each planet. Now many of the settlements can take a few hits from missiles, but there is no ‘direct’ way of telling outside of the colours flashing before going out — so best to not let any of them get hit.
What makes Manual Intervention so interesting to me is its ability to juggle the physics-centric defense and arcade-like style with an actual storyline. Manny is a scared, ill prepared individual and knows it well, only coaxed onwards by his commander to learn quickly for the sake of the millions of people on the planets. The missions all contain little text in between to highlight who these mysterious attackers are and where they came from, piecing it together until they can find the source of the attacks. It’s much more than I was expecting from a space defense game, but it is appreciated nonetheless.
Tying this all together makes our first entry of page 54 quite an interesting design. If you like tower defense games that are more on the spectrum of fast-paced panic induction than this is definitely going to be your speed, rather than ‘prepare your turrets and watch’. After you finish the campaign, custom games can be made as well to bring out some more longevity and creativity, so give it a whirl.
Record Store Nightmare is a survival arcade game created by hotseatgames, an indie dev and boardgame dev in the USA. Players will be surviving a strange apocalypse as Rob, a record store employee. Unfortunately for him, this apocalypse seems musically drive, and soon the dead are aiming for his tunes.
The core gameplay is simple; Rob has four aisles that he must protect as zombies wander towards the end of them. The only weapons at his disposal are records, so he throws them like weaponized frisbees at the undead. Players can throw the records at high or low angles depending on if the zombies are human height or crawling on the ground, which is done with W and S. Unfortunately he can only carry 6 records at once, and the only place to get more is to venture deeper in to the aisles and grab the vinyls that have fallen off the shelves. Outside of being dangerous, this also means that Rob cannot switch aisles until players get him back to the end which can be tricky since the zombies cannot get to the end of the aisles to win. There is one thing that Rob has up his sleeve: the ultimate vinyl, the Compact Disc (CD). This is a limited shot that pierces through all zombies to clear an entire aisle out of the undead. Don’t do what I did and waste them all immediately. Trust me.
Whether you decide to try the survival mode, getting through 10 waves as fast as possible to get rescued, or attempt the endless mode, Record Store Nightmare is exactly what you could want out of an arcade game. It can scale forever if you so wish, and it has a bunch of references to 80s music. That’s right, all of the vinyl are labelled in the bottom right corner. If you love this combination, or just like hearing a guy throw vinyl all day, then give this a try.
