1993 Space Machine

[h1]Pros:[/h1] ✅ [b]The game is not too difficult and the checkpoint placement is generous (The Omega level can be very challenging).[/b] ✅ [b]Decent music.[/b] ✅ [b]A huge selection of weapons and multiple ships.[/b] [h1]Cons:[/h1] ❌ [b]The text window sometimes appears at the worst possible moments when you need to dodge multiple objects.[/b] ❌ [b]Broken achievements... As of now, you cannot obtain any of them legitimately.[/b] ❌ [b]Limited amount of money you can earn per run. Once a level has been completed, replaying it will not reward you with any additional money.[/b] ❌ [b]Too expensive for what it offers + broken achievements is a huge deal for me.[/b]

Eh. It's an ok shmup.

The title already narrates the story of the game: an Amiga production that ended up abandoned due to personal vicissitudes of the developers - I even vaguely recall having heard of the original title [b]Shenandoah[/b], which has been recovered for the 2020 update - until one of them found the old code and assets a couple of decades later and decided to resurrect the project with today's development tools. While some elements are clearly modern, like the 16:9 format, with others it's difficult to tell where the original production ends and new parts begin. The rotating shield, for example, feels new because with the joysticks mostly used at the time, I can't see it as a convenient mechanic. According to the devs, allowing up to four players was always in the plans, and they had even developed an adapter for that in the 1990s. The presentation would've been excellent at the time and it's still pretty good for today, an era where indie gaming has brought a big re-evaluation an resurrection of pixel art. A few ship designs aren't great but the variety of sprites and environments is really notable, showing it was indeed an ambitious production for those years. An especially original en…

Tickles the exact same brain lobe as those old arcade cabinets of my youth, tucked in corners of hotels or pizza places or ferries, when there were never enough quarters to go around and the flashing lights and 8-bit sounds plied my young mind with the promise of cool sci-fi military hardware and explosions. So many explosions. Love. My only gripe is that you can't resize the window and it defaults to fullscreen without any in-app option to change that, which is kind of awkward with a superwide monitor.

All that it's missing is a synthesized voice saying "bloodmoney"

Honestly, it's neat that this game was revived after so many years. It's pretty fun too.