PEGBRJE: Metori and Wordsum Blitz
Lot of words I don’t think exist.
Meteori is a tactical arcade shooter created by Fractured Mind, an indie dev in the USA that was featured back on page 49 with Death Game+. This time around there is no game of death, but instead fuse together classic arcade titles and themes to save the planet.
Metori’s initial gameplay revolves around the player piloting a 2D ship around space in the same vein as Asteroid, thrusting forward and shooting all space rocks. There is a lovely addition to this momentum-heavy formula in ‘stabalize’ which stops the player’s ship in its tracks. This does mean that players will need to speed the ship back up again to get moving, but it’s a good price to pay if one overshoots. Enemies will show up eventually, and they can be a pain since every shot they take will send them backwards — fundamental laws are annoying sometimes. Just as an aside, there are no health bars, so players will have to always be on their toes in terms of avoiding getting hit and hitting enemies.
This all sounds like one singular arcade game with some enjoyable upgrades, but I did call this game tactical for a reason; the ship players start with is not necessarily the only ship they can get. See, scattered on the map are these strange cross-shaped ship-bases that are controlled by either the enemy or not at all. By holding the player’s ship to the station, they can capture it and gain its constant production of ships. These initial ships sent out by the captured base can collect meteorite, which in turn allows the player to buy more ships from the base factory to raise a fleet. These ships can be ‘tabbed’ between to switch which ship is under direct control of the player, while the rest follow specific AI patterns that can be set to Sentry, Follow, or Drift.
This is where the ‘fusion’ of Metori comes in as it cleverly adds a layer of resource management and strategy to a tried-and-true formula. It can be a bit tricky to get at first, but soon you’ll be flying around space defeating enemies and creating an empire. Now there are game modes that separate the experience, between campaign laying out a story of your mission to save Earth, and the quicker action missions that allow you to dive in and fight random seeded maps and enemies. Which ever one you pick, if you love classic arcade games you’ll definitely enjoy this twist.
Wordsum Blitz is a fast-paced word puzzle game created by Pixelshot Games, an indie dev of small and lightweight titles. In this case, players will be attempting to ‘Tetris’ their way in to finding words in a grid to gain points and stop their inevitable demise.
For those unfamiliar with the idea of Tetris, the goal is to neatly pack away sections of blocks so that the entire grid does not reach the top while gaining points per row ‘completed’. Instead of completing rows, Wordsum Blitz is focused on players creating words out of the blocks by selecting the letters in order and submitting the word. The blocks can be connected diagonally — not something Tetris is known for — but the letters need to be connected or else they cannot be submitted. Once a successful word is submitted, all letters used are deleted and the blocks above fall down to fill the void. Points are gained per letter used in the word, and the game continues onwards.
Well, sort of. See Tetris has the looming fear of getting incorrect blocks to fit neatly which does not appear possible here. Instead, players are given 15 seconds to find words. If they cannot, a row of letters is added to the bottom and the timer is reset — remember, the game ends when a block attempts to poke out of the top boundary of the board. This creates unfathomable pressure, making it much more stressful than a game of Tetris. Words are hard to place at the best of times, and with all the letters jumbled together I found more often than not that I was unable to get a word in before a row was added. Since that row is dynamic as well, it just adds more complexity and memorization even after a word is created.
Honestly this might be one of the hardest games I’ve played in the bundle — the strategy of trying to stay dynamic in understanding the letters while also formulating words that are connected can be extremely taxing on the brain if words are not your forte. Thankfully it is easy to restart and go again, especially thanks to its easy mouse controls. Typing doesn’t work, so don’t try that. Also, do be aware that while this game would be amazing on mobile it does not appear that a mobile version is included — there are versions of this game on mobile that you can try, but in terms of this minimalistic style by this developer I could not find any mobile versions.
Regardless, good luck and hopefully you can find better words than my shoddy attempt at ‘Yoda’.
