Weapons are useful things in a confrontational situation, but there’s no getting around that they don’t tend to be light. When speed is everything weight matters, so it’s more important for a lightning-fast smuggler to be fast than deadly. Besides, if you get enough people mad they’re bound to start tripping over themselves, and that’s where being nimble becomes a weapon of its own. Swordship is a dodge-em-up revealed this week whileits demoreleased quickly afterwards, showing off a fast and stylish dodge-‘em-up that’s all about controlling the screen through speed and precision.
The basic plot is that global warming fried the Earth, people moved underwater, and trade between the three major cities is vulnerable to bandits who can steal the containers for the people left on the surface. At the start of each new run you’ve got a single ship, but can choose at level’s end to use the captured containers for points, keep them for extra lives or split the difference any way that feels right. Containers also hold random perks good for the duration of the current run, but the score at the end of the game goes towards earning new types of ships with permanent abilities so there’s some thinking to be done in how best to use the level’s haul.
As for surviving the run, things kick off from the start and never slow down. The screen is uncluttered except for the swordship and the enemies that pop in and disappear, and the trick is to avoid the enemies and their firepower while keeping an eye out for the telltale yellow stripe that indicates a cargo container is on the way. All you need to do to pick it up is be anywhere in the lane when it zips on by, but the drop-off point is a specific spot on the screen that takes a second to collect the container, and the necessary time sitting still may not be easy to come by.
Survival is simply a matter of not getting hit, but surviving with style means using the enemy’s weapons against them and has the added bonus of buying a little breathing room. Turrets pop up from the water, shadow showing where they’re rising from, and take a second to get a bead on the player before the laser hums to life, a red line indicating where the bolt will fire. The hum of the warmup lets you know when to move, so with a little planning you’re able to get right between two turrets and have them fire on each other. Mines take a second to explode as well, a large red circle showing the area of the explosion, while flying drones drop a set of three explosives that are also conveniently marked. It only takes a few runs before you can make the enemies work for you, taking each other out and occasionally dropping the yellow energy diamonds that power up any special abilities the ship might have. No matter which ship you’ve got, though, it’s always equipped with the ability to duck under the water for a moment of safety, getting out of the way of the surface chaos.
Swordship is a fast burst of arcade action, sleek and zippy with a great feel to the movement. While the demo is ready now, the full game is still way off sometime in September, as revealed in the release window trailer. Swordship already feels highly polished, from the sense of speed as you tear through the waters down the screen, to the cinematic moments that kick in during a particularly daring escape. The enemy patterns feel fair, with plenty of advance warning to get out of the way, and yet it’s still easy to plow right into a stray beam that was clearly telegraphed. It also helps that the player ship design is fantastic, being a triangular wedge skimming the water when empty, but opening to store the containers when it’s time to pick them up. It’s a promising debut oozing with style and replayability, making Swordship a title to anticipate.
