SpaceMerc
Colin EUMP · 2017 · Action, Indie, Shoot 'Em Up, Bullet Hell, Casual
PC
7 user reviews71% · 7
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About SpaceMerc
SpaceMerc is a casual narrative bullet hell shooter about one pilot's quest to get paid by blowing stuff up. There's also an intergalactic war or something going on too. Join Cloud "Richard" Stryker on his quest to win ac war he has no stake or interest in and save the side he just happens to reside in. More importantly, join him in his effort to gain financial security.
Oh, and blow stuff up in space. A lot. Blow up all the stuff.
Containing 30 levels and 36 weapons, there's plenty of ways to blow up all the stuff. Try out such realistic weapons as the electric gatling gun, laser turrets, and the antimatter bomb. Then try out slightly less realistic weapons like the annihilation ray, the lightning cannon, and the distortion flail.
Meet strange species of pilot with unpronounceable names and have totally mundane banter. Then destroy them. Listen to military personnel talk vaguely about politics and ethics. ...Or don't. The skip button is right there.
Want to play bullet hell shmups but can't handle the steep difficulty of conventional games in the genre? Just play through this game and give yourself much more time to get better.
Oh, and blow stuff up in space. A lot. Blow up all the stuff.
Containing 30 levels and 36 weapons, there's plenty of ways to blow up all the stuff. Try out such realistic weapons as the electric gatling gun, laser turrets, and the antimatter bomb. Then try out slightly less realistic weapons like the annihilation ray, the lightning cannon, and the distortion flail.
Meet strange species of pilot with unpronounceable names and have totally mundane banter. Then destroy them. Listen to military personnel talk vaguely about politics and ethics. ...Or don't. The skip button is right there.
Want to play bullet hell shmups but can't handle the steep difficulty of conventional games in the genre? Just play through this game and give yourself much more time to get better.
Features
- 7 difficulty modes plus a separate difficulty modifier, spanning from "When am I going to have to try?" all the way to "Are humans physically capable of this?"
- Resolution options ranging from 640x480 to 3200x2400, all at 60 fps
- 1/2 speed mode, for players who don't like fast-paced games as much
- Keyboard, keyboard with mouse, and controller, all supported equally
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
✦ AI summary
SpaceMerc is a retro bullet-hell shooter that players appreciate for its novel difficulty system, diverse weapon purchasing mechanics, and engaging gameplay loop, though opinions vary widely on its presentation. The game's pixel art style and amateurish visuals divide players, with some enjoying the retro aesthetic while others criticize the artwork quality and overall technical polish. While the core mechanics and creative design choices earn praise from fans of the genre, the game's basic presentation and technical execution hold it back from universal appeal.
SpaceMerc is an awesome fast-paced Shoot'em up, action and Bullet Hell game! It has various spaceships and missions, which upgrade gradually. It also has 45 "easy to do" achievements. The soundtracks are so cool and the gameplay is really enjoyable. 7/106 found this helpful
first impressions: good. kinda "basic", still, enjoyable. dev seems to love his work. i'll give this a full "try", i guess :D5 found this helpful
SpaceMerc is a 2D retro pixel vertical scrolling shoot 'em up/bullet hell/Galaga ripoff slapped together with GameMaker Studio (ugh) and dropped onto Steam unceremoniously. There's a story mode tacked on that doesn't add anything to the lacklustre experience. On the upside this isn't any kind of asset flip and seems to have been genuinely and sincerely made, just, well, badly. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. The artwork here is terrible, it's a blend of old retro pixel "art" used as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics, and some of the most amateurish MS-Paint style drawings (I won't deign to call these "illustrations"). It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget to arrange someone who can do graphics properly, or lack of talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result of these decisions. While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic low quality art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, …2 found this helpful
It's a pretty unique shmup, with a novel, but worthwhile approach to difficulty and difficulty curves. Instead of just having the patterns start out trivial and get complicated, the damage scales over time to make it so you can practice early on on still tricky patterns that are just more forgiving about a few mistakes. The weapon purchasing system is absolutely top-notch, with an excellent approach to pricing and variety seldom matched elsewhere. There are many kinds of weapons to try, and if you're feeling daring you can try to balance two weapons' weaknesses against each other. The dialogue and store descriptions contain many clever ideas, although they're not always presented very well. Bosses and minions have interesting shot patterns, but while the levels are diverse and well-paced, and surely designed with care, minions often seem to be placed a bit haphazardly, making the patterns of enemy appearances a bit hard to predict or memorize.1 found this helpful
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