InkSplosion

Developed by Petite Games and published by Ratalaika Games, InkSplosion is fast paced twin-stick shooter that pushes back the old days of playing for the highest score. It is really simple: in a single screen, you must destroy countless enemies using different weapons, wave after wave, while a blast of colors covers your screen and you try your best to avoid being shot down. And, believe me or not, you will complete the game before you notice it. Now let’s take a closer look in this review.

THE GOOD

• At first glance, I was afraid this colorful experience could give me some sort of headache. As I’m getting older, games that are too colorful tend to stress my eyes and give me some level of headache. But gladly not this one =) The characters and scenarios are of very simple design and totally black and white, causing a strange first impression. But as you give your first shot and a yellow ink trail covers the scenario, you soon understand the name of the game… Every shot, fired by you or one of the enemies, leaves a colored trail in the scenario. Soon as things start to get more and more intense, with faster shots and relentless enemies, you’ll have a crazy rainbow in the scenario, making beautiful abstract paintings as action unfolds above it. And, for everyone’s sake, as you keep your focus on the action, the colorful mess in the scenario doesn’t distract you.
• Gameplay is very simple and accessible: as every other twin-stick shooter available nowadays, with the left stick you control your ship (never truly understand what it really is so, for this review, I’ll call It a ship), while the right stick is used to control your aim. With the right trigger you shoot your weapon and with the left stick you slow down the time, making it easier to avoid enemy bullets. You have no lives, just an energy bar at the top of the screen. Every time you are hit, this bar diminishes. And it also reduces when you’re using your slow down feature, so remember to use it wisely because, when it goes empty, it’s game over! For prolonging your lifespan, you must destroy enemies on the screen: every enemy destroyed grants additional energy for that bar!
• The game offers you three different modes: Classic, where you must destroy a small number of enemies in each stage to reach the next one, having your gun changed for a new one at the beginning of the next round. When you reach a pre-determined score (100.000 points), the Arena mode becomes available. In this one, you play endlessly facing waves of enemies with a new weapon at after each wave. And finally, after you reach some high score in Arena mode (100.000 points again), you gain access to the last mode, the Hard mode. This one consists in a harder Classic mode, where you take much more damage than in the other modes.
• You have 5 different guns to dispatch your enemies: the normal gun, the shotgun, the rocket launcher, the distance gun and the laser gun. They differ from each other by their reach, the rate of fire and the damage they cause. I had the impression that the shotgun, the one with the shortest reach, is the one that causes more damage, so I go on a Rambo-like rampage when I’m with it.
• Songs in the game are ok, with a narrator saying things like the weapon of your choice and a phrase I kept hearing all the time when I was playing it: “game over”. For the music, you can expect some electronic beats of great quality during the gameplay.

MIXED FEELINGS

• When I told you will complete the game before you notice it, I wasn’t kidding: It took me less than 30 minutes to reach the 1000G with InkSplosion. While achievement hunters will enjoy it, casual players will see the game has little to offer.
• Enemies doesn’t put a very though challenge. You’ll only have problems with them when in a level that combines barriers cornering you with a gun with slow rate of fire. In these cases, missing a shot will often leads you to a fateful game over.

THE BAD

• The game has absolutely zero story. Who you are or why are you facing these enemies is never explained to you. I understand that a game like this, a score-oriented title, doesn’t need a reason to be. But I’d like to know why I’m fighting these enemies, wouldn’t you?
• The three different modes aren’t that different from each other. The endless one, the arcade mode, ended up being my favorite, but only because it takes no time to load a new screen.
• This lack of content is the game’s main flaw. It’s purposely at a low price of 5 USD because it’s not meant to least long. There could be much more things to keep players engaged with it, like leaderboards, coop and versus modes and more variety to enemies and weapons. But for what

InkSplosion [Score: 4.5/10] A game with addicting gameplay and a lot of potential. But, after a few minutes with it, you see how little content it has to offer. Although it has a fun gameplay, it’s not enough to keep you engaged with it for more than a couple of hours… specially after you unlock all the achievements, the main reason most of the players will end up buying it. But if you’re not into the achievement wagon, it’s hard to recommend it for you.