Hell On Wheels: Demon Truck Released
When a satan takes the wheel of a truck, don't expect to have any say in where it's going. That truck is going straight to Hell, and it's going to get messy. The newly-released Demon Truck [official site] is a shoot 'em up of sorts, sure, in that your vehicle rolls along vertically-scrolling landscapes while you blast at hordes of enemies with wacky weapons and try not to get hit. Only, satans have taken control of steering and aiming. However, timing when to accelerate, ram, and shoot is still a tricky business.
Demon Truck's a shmup without dodging or aiming, then. Sort of. Not really. The truck trundles ever onwards, trying to automatically dodge obstacles and prioritise targets, but the small control Demon Truck gives is still fairly tricky to manage.
Having the throttle means you can ram into enemies and through barricades, dodge shots, and even deflect shots with careful timing. And thought you can't aim, ammo is a limited (though self-replenishing) resource so carefully choosing when to fire, ram, or dodge is vital - especially as snazzy driving can replenish ammo, and shootkills can refill engine power.
Demon Truck also offers a big, loud, noisy, exciting decision at the end of each level, presenting a random selection of two upgrades to choose between, such as bolting on flamethrowers, rockets, or laser guns (or perhaps a health boost, if you're one of those fools who thinks FIRE somehow isn't sustenance enough).
It's about points. Kill things and survive to score big and climb those leaderboards. Points! It's pretty fun? I'm not very good at the pre-release version I played? I cannot imagine how people at the top of the leaderboards got those scores? (After Devil Daggers, I feel the absence of built-in replays in every leaderboard game I play.)
Demon Truck is $5 on Itch for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can play the original prototype, created in a Ludum Dare game jam, over here to get the general idea. It's also having a crack at Steam Greenlight.
