Void Prison

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter / Arcade

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Void Prison is an Arcade-style 2-Stick Shooter released on PC in 2022 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023. In this game, players fend off enemies who cannot kill the player directly, but who are instead trying to push the player to the edge of the circular arena. Players aim to avoid this as long as possible, trying to hold out and get the best time they can manage.

The presentation here is extremely simple, using 2D pixel art visuals in a fairly minimal style, backed by techno-style synthesized music that works well with the intense action focus of the gameplay.

I will give the game credit, in that by making the gameplay work on “sumo” rules, it changes things up somewhat – now you may well be better off heading into enemy fire if doing so gets you away from the edge of the arena, and players are mostly eliminating enemies to clear the way and make it less likely that a stray shot will send them careening too close to the edge. As 2-Stick Shooters go, this is fairly unique territory.

However, there are problems here. First, the gameplay gets monotonous too quickly, with the game’s few upgrades short-lived, meaning you’ll mostly be stuck with your standard machine gun-like spray of bullets. A Roguelike approach to acquiring upgrades that stack could have made things far more interesting here.

Second, the game’s controls are not great, and even if you aren’t hit by enemies you’ll be pushed around by your own recoil, with your movement feeling like you’re running on ice. This can make for losses that feel like they’re not really your fault, but due to the game’s sub-par controls.

On balance, I still think Void Prison is a fun game in short busts, but it’s just too shallow and repetitive to be a game you’ll play for very long. And while its $3 price tag makes it easy enough to pick up, and the unique gameplay mechanics may make it worthwhile to do so, do not expect this to be a game you play for very long before dropping it in favor of a meatier experience elsewhere.

tl;dr – Void Prison is an Arcade-style 2-Stick Shooter where enemies can’t kill the player directly, but instead try to push the player to the edge of the circular arena. The unique gameplay mechanics make this game fairly unique among 2-Stick Shooters, but the lack of depth and poor controls mean that even though you may find this a fun little $3 distraction, it’s not a game you’re likely to play for very long.

Grade: C+

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