Charlie's Games has released it's latest shooter. This time its a score attack shooter by the name of
Irukandji. The shooter has an underwater theme and the name itself refers to a rather venomous form of
jellyfish.
Now, what does Charlie's latest marvel have going for it? Well, the graphics are top notch, the bullet patterns are hypnotizing, controls are spot on, music is excellent, and it has a giant crab boss.. any of these fine points should already have you flooding his server with requests for the demo.
Now, being a score attack shooter, it does have some limitations. First and foremost it is only one level long. This is offset somewhat because it does throw some variety into the mix. You can unlock six ships to play with and it comes with a full online leaderboard for each ship. There are also a total of ten achievements to unlock.
Charlie clarified a bit about the score attack structure over on the2bears: A new power-up appears for every fifty enemies killed. Once the ship is fully powered up, each of the bonuses you collect will increase your multiplier.
Controls are simple, but I do find that this is one game where the keyboard is king. The joypad was just too slow on some of the nastier bullet patterns. Keyboard controls are [Z] Fire towards left, [X] Fire towards right, [Z] and [X] held together fire straight, [C] Fires your ClusterF*ck missles.. ok, it doesn't really say that.. but thats what it does. ;-)
He is asking for a minimum of $1 [USD] for the game, which is really a steal for a shooter of this quality. Do right by him and send him a few more bones if you are able. After all, there really aren't too many developers working in this genre anymore... and we like to keep the ones we have.
Also, when you buy the full version you will get the Windows, Mac and Linux versions. I've only tried the Windows so far but I'm getting ready to fire up the linux port... as for Mac... well, I'm allergic to apples. ;-)
