NeoCandy

In Brief

A top down retro pixel shooter, that would be at home in the early 90’s. Quoted on Steam as a rouge-like action shooter, but I disagree because rogue-like 'usually' means when you die you start right from the beginning of the game, when you die in Neocandy, you only have to replay the level you died on. That said, when you close a game down, on restarting it appears to start from level 0 again.

Introduction:

NeoCandy - this is rogue like action shooter in Pixel style.Make your way through the mazes. Destroy enemies. Choose ammunition and survive. First aid kits will allow you to have more. Generated world in pixel style. Many weapons, enemies and labyrinths. Pixel graphic style, hardcore and unforgettable music is all you need for a pleasant  game experience. WASD - move. Mouse -AIM . Kill all enemies

Edited and added to developer reference accessed HERE. 21st October 2019

The Game:

Neocandy looks like it's named after the Japanese arcade console cabinets that were named NeoCandy. Today's game reflects those early arcade machines with retro pixel graphics and a style reminiscent of those early to late arcade heydays before home consoles and PC’s became the norm. I as a mid 20’s 'teenager' spent many hours in the university arcade room which was named 'The Cave', and decked out in green lights and Eiger like wall murals, spending uncountable amounts of my student grant (back then we got a decent grant and free tuition) on my favorite arcade games of the time such as Star Wars, asteroids and not forgetting breakout and a top down shmup I can't remember the name of now. Today's game giveaway certainly takes me back to those sweet days.

As for the game play, its absolutely fine, I didn’t get any bugs apart from after taking a screen capture on level four, when I'd saved the capture, I went to the portal to move to level five and the game sort of went zig-zaggy for a second, then the level appeared cut in half and I couldn't access the level at all. Restarting the level fixed the issue and I didn't see any other bugs. what lets this game down is the limited number of enemies you'll find; three in total; and this led to the game becoming rather tedious after almost a hours game play. (I replayed the game twice to level 12, taking screen captures etc just to check if the game would save at the point you leave it when you close the game down, (which it unfortunately doesn't). Don’t get me wrong, the game is very playable and is not one of those £0.79 games that are becoming very common on Steam these days, though i don't think it is worth the price steam are asking for it. The Steam community have given a mainly negative review of the game, however this seems mainly based on very little game play of around 10 to 20 minutes. You can check out the Steam community members reviews and comments about this game HERE. You can see a video of game play on the Steam store page HERE.

Regarding the negative aspect of the limited number of enemy types (3 in total) that I briefly mentioned above. Because you'll quickly figure out the perfect weapon to use against all of these enemies,(I'm not telling you which), it becomes very easy to complete all of the levels. I had no trouble at all progressing 12 levels twice as well as playing levels to test saves etc. The only reason I died when I'd reached level 12 the first time was that I'd taken a screen capture of an enemy approaching me. By the time I'd saved the capture the enemy had killed me , (see images below). When you die, you start from the beginning of the level you died on and not like a true rogue-like games from the very beginning. Steam says this is a rogue-like game, I disagree for the reason I've just mentioned above.

There also appears to be no progression in difficulty. Basically the difficulty remains the same throughout the game; at least it did for the time I’ve played so far. I will be keeping this one; but for how long ????? with that in mind I would say try it out for your self, if you find it not to your liking, then delete it at your leisure; it's easy going and ideal for those that tend to be a little slower in reaction times (like me). :)

There are useful indicators to the top left of the game arena, the first one, that looks like thick red line is your health bar, the second one tells you how much pistol/machine gun ammo you have left and the third is your shotgun ammo. The third weapon is a grenade launcher that appears to have unlimited ammunition. There are grenade pick ups which add to the total grenades you have, but when you fire the grenade launcher, the number of grenades in the indicator remain the same (maybe this is another bug?). The shotgun has a limited range as does the grenade launcher, but both are more effective at killing enemies, especially at close quarters. When enemies are close you can damage multiple weapons with your shotgun as it does have a wide spread. One of the enemies is slightly harder to kill because it carried what looks like one of those riot shields. Grenades only require one hit, shotgun shells two hits (usually depending on how close you are to the enemy) and the pistol or machine gun that have much longer range, but require more ammo to kill. The pistol and machine gun use the same ammo. Some enemies when destroyed will drop weapons health or ammo. You can only carry one weapon at a time. To pick up new weapons walk over them and click the E button. When walking over ammo or health they are automatically added to your indicators. New weapons do not have any extra ammo, When a downed enemy drops something you can tell what it is by the symbols on it, a + sign for health, thee lines indicates a weapon and the rest are ammo drops. When you’ve cleared a level of all enemies the last enemy will leave a small glowing portal behind. Walk over to it and you are almost instantly transported to the next level.

Conclusion:

Apparently levels are randomly generated, so you should find an infinite number of levels to explore. The main downside is that although each level is different in its layout, the actual environments remain the same throughout, i.e. what assets you'll see are repeated in every level; so, I found by level 12 that I was getting a little bored of the game. so didn't progress further, especially as I'd repeated the 12 levels twice. I’d much rather explore some of my older top down shooter games that I've not played in years, such as the Alien and Zombie shooter games from several yeas ago that not only have a much more interesting and varied game play, but look vastly better than this retro styled but playable game.