Blue Revolver Brings Retro Shmup Shenanigans

There's a reason why they don't call me Shit-Hot Hot Shots Alice: because I'm no good at shoot 'em ups. Also other reasons, but mostly that. However, Stellar Circle's retro Blue Revolver [official site] did catch my eye with a fun alpha demo last year. Now the full game is out and yes, this certainly is some bullet-spewing, vertical-scrolling, shot-dodging shooting 'em upping.

I've had a brief crack at the finished game, on both the easiest and the adaptive difficulty levels and yeah, I dig it. I'm not experienced in the genre but I enjoyed all the lasers and explosions, as well as building and bursting score chains. Blowing up enemies builds up chains, obvs, then when you hit the maximum of 8 you can score mega-points by blasting away with your special weapon. That has limited ammo, of course, so it's quite fun to dodge around trying to collect ammo while picking the best times to score big.

Along with two pilots/ships, you get your choice of different main weapon types and special weapons from cluster missiles to a shield.

Yes, it does support screen rotation for people with spinny monitors. I'd never done that before and was hugely excited, as if I'd discovered my computer has a third arm.

Blue Revolver is out on Windows, Mac, and Linux. A small launch discount brings it to £9.89/13,49€/$13.49 on Steam, and both Itch and Humble offer it DRM-free with a Steam key too. You can grab an alpha demo of Blue Revolver - last updated in March - from Itch if you fancy seeing what it's about. Now, a trailer: