Heavy Bullets - Early Access Impressions

Six Bullets. That's all you have to play with. Lose them, and you're done for. Carelessly blast them across the level, and you're done for. Miss too many times, and - you guessed it - you're done for. {Heavy Bullets} might have a simple enough premise, but that doesn't stop it from being a tricky beast to navigate.

It's a six shooter in the most literal sense possible. Bullets fired can be reclaimed and reloaded into your low-poly pistol. They bounce up and down on the spot where they fall, whether that be on the remnants of an enemy or in front of a distant wall should you miss. There's no auto-reload, so death often follows a failure to restock the weapon at an opportune moment. Those six bullets are the fulcrum on which all else balances.

The first thing to grab you by the throat is the spartan visuals. Levels are decorated with neon and garish fluorescent wipes of colour. It's low-fi and simplistic, but charming nonetheless, at least at first. The same can be said for the audio work, with delights initially before ringing in the ear further down the line. There's a deliberate retro style that, on the whole, we appreciated, and it's a cunning use of limited resources; it's clear this is not the work of a large team.

But it doesn't matter how many people worked on the game if there's potential there, and this is the case with {Heavy Bullets}. It's not a masterpiece and may never be, but there's a decent challenge and a well honed concept in place.

Each of the eight levels is procedurally generated, which means every pass through this deadly kaleidoscope is different, although it's not long before familiarity sets in. For the most part the scripting used to generate the different levels is decent, although it can be frustrating when the areas surrounding the exits are heavily populated with enemies (you can't advance to the next level until the final area has been cleared of enemies, and if there's lots of turrets laying in wait and you have little in the way of health, it can be a bit annoying).

Speaking of enemies, from the levels that we've sampled there's a nice selection of baddies (perhaps ‘nice' isn't the right word), from the standard snappy spherical beasties and laser turrets that you'll meet right off the bat, through to the snakes that hide in clumps of vegetation, the spindly legged spider-like creatures and grenade flinging catapults. We're sure that there's even more than we've already discovered, waiting in later levels.

Different enemies have different strengths and weaknesses, which won't surprise anyone, but the visual language of each is clearly signposted. You won't die too many times without seeing it coming first. Methodical planning and awareness of your surroundings is just as important as keeping your gun topped up with ammo.

Death itself is, for the most part, a cruel beast. There's no continues, no restarts. Each time you die you're flung back to the beginning. {Heavy Bullets}, for all its first-person shooter pretensions, is very much a roguelike dungeon crawler, posed in the style of an 80s digital flashback. The overall goal concerns moving through the game's eight levels and reseting an infected computer mainframe, but other than that there's not much in the way of narrative.

Downing an enemy leaves bouncing gold coins, there to be collected and recycled at one of the different stations on hand. Some provide medical supplies, some ammo and grenades, while others can act as a bank for your funds, and allows you to store money and funds that can be accessed in a subsequent play-through. There's loads of collectibles and passive items that you can pick up on your way through each mission, from mines to potions and rockets. These items can also be banked for later use.

All told {Heavy Bullets} is in pretty good shape for an Early Access release. We can't see there being much left to do, save for fine tuning and bug fixing, and with that in mind it's easy to recommend if you're after a roguelike shooter, even with the Early Access tag. While it makes a positive first impression, there's not a lot of variation from a visual and audio perspective, so it's unlikely to prove a longterm investment for most. But, if you're in the hunt for both a quick fix and a distinctive experience, it's certainly worth the price of admission.