Honored samurai, ruthless ronin, wayward vagabonds, shadowy ninja and helpless villagers... welcome.
Opening Volley
I’m a HUGE fan of megastructure art and media. It’s not new and I’m not alone in my love of it, by any means. But like Count Zero (yes, I read it before Neuromancer, unaware) flipped the recognition switch on the glitchy, neon-soaked corporate-wired hackers eating away at your brain through ICE aesthetic style of writing that I enjoy, Tsutomu Nihei’s manga Blame! sounded out my love for towering, brutalist mazes of liminal spaces inhabited by bizarre bio-creatures.
Main Event
Luna Abyss, in development from Bonsai Creative, promises to scratch that itch in so many ways. Touted as a story-driven, bullet hell FPS, this game is joining the ranks of new bullet hell style of gaming. First and foremost, for those uninitiated in gaming terms, “bullet hells” are 2D scrollers as perfectly outlined in the four-minute IGN review of Luna Abyss below.
IGN’s summation of the game’s potential is dead on. (For a full demo playthrough without commentary, scroll further down.) As an FPS player (but a horrible bullet hell player despite my love for them) the gameplay enthralled, excited and inspired me.
It is, however, not the first game to take bullet hells 3D. Though not advertised as a bullet hell, Returnal (originally only for the PS5 but later released this year on Windows) is a third-person bullet hell. WARNING: This is a full-game walkthrough. I’ve jumped to one of the more impressive battles (not even a boss battle) to highlight the bullet hell mechanic (beginning about 30 seconds in).
Mind-blowing. Honestly. I would love to play it someday.
Jumping back to Luna Abyss, the soundtrack and sound effects add a deep and atmospheric soundscape, rounding out what is a brilliant setting that I only wish I could create in the minds of my reading audience.
If there was anything I didn’t like, it was being fed the narrative. Though the game is “story-driven” and does promise to be interesting, I found it that its “grounding” in the familiar (Earth, possibly a prison?) left me flat. Why is a reference to “New London” important? Or prisons and wardens, for that matter? Is it just to balance out the enigmatic references of alien tech and surroundings? This is a failure in storytelling in my opinion. Let those engaging with media determine a great deal (if not all) of the what’s happening and why. Never spoon-feed the audience. Also, amnesia — annoying! Stahp already with the amnesia.
All that said, the demo walkthrough (above; 22 mins) is gorgeous and I can’t wait for this game. Unfortunately, I’m not finding a link to the demo itself, so if you find one, leave a link in the comments for everyone.
Before I go, I’d also like to announce that I am working on updating a novella that I finished writing back in 2021, but never released. An aggressive re-write is already in process, which will be followed up by a handover to beta-readers. After that, each chapter will be released here through Substack, possibly, likely?, via links to my Vocal website. Whichever way it is posted/hosted, it will be FREE! NO ACCOUNTS NEEDED. NO ADS. NO BS. This has been my promise from Day One and I WILL NOT BREAK THAT RULE. And so I give you the cover to Brainscream.
The future of robotics is a scream...
We never meet without parting
Next issue... I’ve got a lot of promises to fulfill. Author interviews and the like.
Until then!
Made in DNA
Looking forward to the novella! And losing at this game. Bullet Hell is my kryptonite. Ikaruga took an almost supernatural effort of will.
Bullet Hell games... in 3D... those days are over for me! :) I watch others play now. I still play SHMUPS, nostalgia eh.
Also, at least one machine is called Wintermute in every network I set up... lucky me, I met Mr. Gibson in January 2019 (just before COVID) when he was on campus at my previous company. He did a workshop and signed some books. Course I didn't know about it since I was only visiting for the week, so I didn't have my copy of Neuromancer with me, they had sold out all copies he brought so I got a signed copy of Agency instead.