Unshine Arcade

A bit disappointed with this game, had thought there was more variation in the arcade and not just a single pacman derivative.

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I'm not usually the type of gamer that sits down to write reviews, but hands down this is the game that desevers it the most for me. I haven't even been over half, gosh probably not even 30-40% of what the game is supposed to offer, and yet here I am writing a review of why I already feel the need to recommend this game. First of all, this review comes from a guy who deeply loves and appreciates indie games, so when I saw this hidden gem reccomended by steam itself on my calendar, and after watching the trailers, I knew I needed to get my hands in this game. I have to admit that at first I was skeptikal, I thought to myself "this looks to be true, there has to be a catch", but to my glad suprise, the only catch there was, was my attention on the game (no, I won't stop glazing). Even before playing, I already was getting some CloverPit/Buckshot Roulette vibes, so I was kinda scared it would be just a cheap attempt on going by the formula of edgy setting+videogame attatched to it with sprinkles of lore, and even tho it has some components of that, after finally playing the game I have to admit I was more than impressed on how the dev/s gave their own spin, no just on this type of setting/aesthetic, but I would even go as far to say, to the roguelite genre itself, and it todays landscape that is quite rare, so getting it from this, sadly, but hopefully just for now, unkown game, was a pleacent suprise for someone who enjoys roguelikes/lites so much. Now getting to talk more about the game in depth, for the time I've spent on it at least. Finishing my point from before, I was kinda scared of how similar the aproach to the aesthetic would be, but on my POV, they nailed it, it doesn't feel like a rehashed of CloverPit, even tho it obvously takes inspiration from it and Buckshot Roulette, and I even have to add that the first thing I noticed once we have the liberty to go around the place was that the area above us is quite similar to the one on Buckshot, were you go from your cell to the room where you play, idk if this was made on purpose as a homage or reference, I at least took it as such, bc it feels like a nice touch to reference a game that inspired your own work. Speaking on the gameplay itself, at first I felt like I wasn't gonna like it, bc it follows a different way on the level design, I remember I thought "why don't we just start with the weapon" "why is the dash not just automatically full after cooldown", etc. Small little nitpicks I was having with the game, but as I continued playing I was feeling more and more inmerced on the core game loop, you first start on this stealth type mission where you get around the map trying to find the capsules, gold and maybe other stuff you may need like heals, to then burst into action when you grab the weapon and get your revenge on the annoying enemies you once had to runaway from, but even tho you have the weapon at your disposal there's still a bit of a challenge (or more than a bit depending on the difficulty), one thing I really liked about the fighting sections is that you aren't insentivices on just running away from the enemies, since you need the tickets to progress on the game, the best thing you can do is a mix between keeping your distance and avoiding while getting to kill the most amount of enemies you can to get those tickets, so you can be more powerfull or have more options in future runs. And talking about future runs, I also really liked how they implemented the meta-progression in the game, were you need the tickets to do pretty much anything, some may say this is a bad thing, but for me it feels more of an incentive to play more and get better to earn more tickets, at first you only have the option to get more options by using the claw machine, but after doing "something" (that being honest I don't even know how or why it even triggered in the first place lol) you unlock a new room where you can upgrade and optimize your future runs, but not in this overpowered way were you just become unstopable, you still need to know what you're doing. That's all I have to say for now on the game, I would add some feedback for possible future features or fixes but i'll leave that for discord. This game feels like a passion project by how well made it's done, because I haven't seen a lot of small indie games get this level of polish, but more than that I can feel that there was thought and care behind it, not wanting to be another "oh is this game but..." it actually tries and very much succedes on being different, offering a new aproach on the game-loop we're so used to on other roguelikes atp, it feels creative and for that alone I cannot not recommend this game, bc you won't get this anywhere else, and I promise when I say that considering I've played a plentifull amount of roguelikes/lites myself. So to end this review, if you're reading this, please do yourself a favor and buy this game. P.S: Sorry for any misspellings but english isn't my first lenguage so the word corrector tries to translate to my native lenguage instead of correcting the english word :")