Sparedevil

Sparedevil (2024) is a retro shooting game in which you fire bowling balls rather than bullets, and gutterballs kill you. Play involves hitting pins to keep your combo alive and chain shots for a high-score rush. It stands out for its fluid traversal and simple bowling premise that keeps playing frantically without bullets and blood.

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Set in a retro-style bowling alley, you play a bowling ball. You must survive as long as possible while stacks of bowling pins roll towards you and your defences. As you shoot the pins you work on combos that grant more powerful moves from lasers to air attacks. The catch is that the higher your combo the faster the pace of the game is set which leads to an ever harder challenge.

Progression is determined by how quickly you can clear the enemies while using your combos to your advantage. The increasing pace of the game makes it steadily more frantic as the overwhelming speed of attacks ramps up. Mastery of the attacks available is key to surviving the ever-growing number of pins.

The result is a shift from the classic shooting game that focuses not just on bullets and killing but fluid traversal and survival tactics. It's still frantic but without '90s bowling alley paraphernalia replacing the usual violence and blood.

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Our examiner, Will Oster, first checked Sparedevil 8 weeks ago. It was re-examined by Ellen Robertson and updated 2 days ago.