Indie Game Pick: Gravitron 2 (Castle Software)
Gravitron 2 is a retro arcade shooter with Thrust-like controls, where the objective is to destroy enemy reactors while saving as many scientists as you can before blasting off into space to complete a level. Keyboard, gamepad and mouse controls are all supported and can be reconfigured by accessing the options menu with the escape key while a game is in progress.
Hold the up arrow key or right mouse button to activate your thrusters, and press the left mouse button or Z key to shoot. Use the X key or middle mouse button to activate your shields and reflect enemy projectiles. Land carefully near a scientist to rescue them, and they will repair some of the damage done to your ship. Fuel can be replenished by hovering or landing next to a fuel pod. Once all reactors in an area have been destroyed, simply fly towards the sky to exit the planet's orbit and progress to the next stage.
The demo contains five of the forty-four levels found in the full version.
Name: Gravitron 2
Developer: Castle Software
Category: Arcade
Type: Demo
Size: 10MB
Comments
great news.
i liked gravitron very much.
im curious how the sequel is.
Posted by: AuthenticKaizen | September 2, 2008 5:00 PM
GREAT GAME.
finished the demo.that was fun. :)
LEAVING ORBIT!
improvements:
-energy bar instead of instant death by one hit(much less frustrating)
-saving people restores energy
-fuel restores automatically when you are near enough and has a longer range (no need for shield activation like in gravitron 1)
-impproved graphics and effects
-nice hud
-mini map on top of the screen
-improved controls (more fluid now...but the controls on gravitron were also very good)
-no matter how fast you land (no damage)
-ship can stick to the wall plus extends little feet when close enough to a possible landing space.
very good quality.
i think the developers should also try to sell this game on XBLA.
(i dont have one but the developers should make this game available to a bigger public and get paid for there work.
5 bucks are allright.)
Posted by: AuthenticKaizen | September 2, 2008 6:24 PM
For some weird reason, i really liked Gravitron 1, but dislike the demo of Gravitron 2. What i dislike most:
1. Too much glow! Really, i like shiny wireframe vector graphics, but its too much.
2. I think that ironically, the retro chiptune-like music of gravitron 2 doesn't work as well for this kind of game as the techno-trance music of gravitron 1. Same for the soundeffects.
3. I constantly have the feeling of there being too much on the screen. Dont know why though.
Posted by: Lyx | September 2, 2008 8:30 PM
For what it's worth, there's no Linux version. It's just a zip file containing the windows version. Wine compatible isn't the same thing; half the games linked to here work with wine. ;-)
Posted by: James | September 2, 2008 11:31 PM
Thanks for that bit of info, James. I have no idea what works with Wine and what doesn't, since I don't have any way of trying them out so any feedback is welcomed. :)
Posted by: Tim | September 3, 2008 6:14 AM
Just a little update to let you know I have started working on a patch to sort out some of the issues.
Should be available in a week or two.
Posted by: X-0ut | September 5, 2008 3:17 PM
Just released a patch that sorts out some issues and makes the game a little easier.
It can be picked up here:
http://xout.blackened-interactive.com/Gravitron2.html
Posted by: X-0ut | September 11, 2008 3:49 PM