I generally don't play games on my phone. But an indie game designer/author (Robert Cordingly - https://twitter.com/CodedGames) on Twitter sent me a link, so I decided to give this one a try, and promised him a review. Luckily for both of us, it's a fun, playable, graphically-pleasing scrolling shooter.
I've always been skeptical of phone games because of control issues. This eliminates that concern by allowing you to play with a single thumb. So, nice work, there. I got a quote from a company in Mexico to develop one of my designs for mobile, but I ultimately decided against it because I didn't really like the feel of dual virtual joysticks.
There's no fluff like plot or cut screens. The game just asks if you want sound and music (a bonus as far as features go, saving you from having to turn your phone down in some situations), and then jumps you into gameplay.
If you like Galaga, Moon Cresta, Xevious, and, more importantly, bullet dodging games like Raiden, you'll probably like Overdrive. It starts off slowly. Like, almost frustratingly slow. But after the first wave, you're treated to an unexpected warp that leaves you with three upgrade options. The upgrades include speed, so it's probably your best first choice.
It's all very pleasant, graphically. It would have wowed you at the arcade in the 80s, for sure. Which is cool, considering he gives the game away for free. The background nebulae/starfields are easy on the eyes, and the warp sequences are visually engaging.
The enemies are pretty original looking. That's hard to achieve in this day and age, where we assume everything has been done before. It's not long before things get frantic. Luckily, the power-ups come often, and the gameplay is pretty balanced. When you do die, you're treated to a shield that protects you, and kills anything it comes in contact with, for nearly ten seconds. This could even be employed as a strategy of sorts, I suppose.
There's also a funky techno soundtrack. All in all, it reminds me of some great Amiga games from back in the days. That's definitely a good thing. For further research, I let my wife, a self-described NGPP (non-game playing person) give it a go. She politely lasted two levels, and said she liked it. So there's that.
I have absolutely no criticism to offer here, in the negative sense. As someone who has some idea of how much work goes into creating something like this, I have to hand it to Coded Games for giving this thing away. I would easily pay $.99-$3.00 for something like this, if I played games on my phone regularly. And, as it stands, it's staying on there. There's a lot of replay value in something like this.
Bravo.
There is a typo on the end screen when you finally lose all your ships, where it says 'arroy keys'. So, there's my contribution to development. Thanks for the great game! I look forward to your next releases. Until then, I'll keep playing this one when I have a few free moments not occupied by social media.
Get it on the Google Play store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codedgames.overdrive#details-reviews or on the Apple Store for iPhone/iPad: https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/robert-cordingly/id1330284383?mt=8
There are more games by Robert here: http://codedgames.com/buy-html5-games/
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