The Devil Daggers developer returns from the void with another arcade shooter that functions more like an inversion than a sequel.
It retains the same shart-or-spray primary weapon, and the enemy archetypes (skulls) are functionally identical, but the change to the scoring system is a brilliant slight of hand.
Instead of being an endless arcade shooter where your score is determined by how long your session time was, Hyper Demon counts DOWN and forces you to raise the time/score by killing enemies in rapid succession.
Aside from some cute philosophical implications (Devil Daggers is a theoretically perfect game, and Hyper Demon can be theoretically perfected), the immediate change is that beating your high score and improving your performance no longer incurs diminishing returns from the player.
Hyper Demon is an overall improvement over Devil Daggers, and a fascinating case study in game design, and how radically an experience can change with the slightest tweak.
It retains the same shart-or-spray primary weapon, and the enemy archetypes (skulls) are functionally identical, but the change to the scoring system is a brilliant slight of hand.
Instead of being an endless arcade shooter where your score is determined by how long your session time was, Hyper Demon counts DOWN and forces you to raise the time/score by killing enemies in rapid succession.
Aside from some cute philosophical implications (Devil Daggers is a theoretically perfect game, and Hyper Demon can be theoretically perfected), the immediate change is that beating your high score and improving your performance no longer incurs diminishing returns from the player.
Hyper Demon is an overall improvement over Devil Daggers, and a fascinating case study in game design, and how radically an experience can change with the slightest tweak.