GOL Cast: Dominating Scoreboards In Polychromatic

After a pretty long hiatus related to my school work, I have finally returned to reclaim the GOL Cast throne. This time we'll be taking a look at Polychromatic, a recently released indie twin-stick shooter.

Polychromatic, developed by Brushfire Games, is a quite simple twin-stick arcade shooter in which you must kill wave after wave of enemies and get as big of a score as possible to climb the highscore board.

Disclosure: I received a key from the developer for beta testing and review purposes.


Polychromatic isn't a particularly complex game by any means. It's actually in many ways a quite simplistic game without big gimmicks or vastly innovative gameplay, but it is very competent at what it does.

Graphically Polychromatic is quite spartan but I can appreciate that considering this is an arcade-y shooter. The simplistic art style is very clear, making dealing with the intense gameplay a bit easier. It's very easy to read the necessary information off the screen and you don't get distracted by flashy effects while you hammer down a bunch of enemies. There isn't even a HUD overlay, instead your lives, score etc. are integrated into the centre of the map. I personally believe simple art styles have a certain elegance to them and I have praised such artistic choices in the past. Especially for a fast paced game like Polychromatic the style works out really well.

Gameplay is equally simple: you simply eliminate wave after wave of enemies as they appear until you no longer can survive the huge masses of enemies thrown at you. However, even though the task itself is quite simple it doesn't mean it's tedious or easy. In fact, the game can be quite difficult. The enemies you will be facing vary both in their appearance and their behavior. Some of them will just wander around aimlessly while others will target you directly and try to get to you as fast as possible. Some of them will spawn in huge masses and flock to you as a big blob consisting of tiny enemies. Some will stay mostly still and try to shoot at you from distance. This enemy variety keeps the game interesting and forces you to adapt to the situation quickly.

The game also has two “panic buttons” in the form of special abilities. The first one is called Dash and makes you invulnerable and able to move quickly. It's particularly useful when you are being cornered and you need to move to the other side of the map very quickly. The second one known as Blast fires shots in every direction and can kill a big number of enemies very easily. If you get surrounded by enemies you can use it to clear a big portion of the board and thus give you some breathing room before more enemies spawn. These two abilities can only be used a limited number of times so you need to plan carefully when to use them. To gain additional uses you need to kill enough enemies and the requirements will be higher the longer you play the game. Especially in the endgame these abilities will become both vital and scarce.

Polychromatic also has three game modes. The first one is called Endless and is pretty much the standard Polychromatic experience. You are given a couple of lives and when you run out of lives it's game over. Addtional lives are acquired the same way additional ability uses are. Timed mode gives you unlimited lives but a timer will start to tick down and when the time runs out the game will end. You gain more time by killing enough enemies. The final mode is the One Life mode and, like the name implies, gives you a single life and you must survive as long as possible. All the game modes play pretty much the same way and don't really affect the gameplay too much. Timed makes it possible to try riskier tactics while One Life encourages quickly using the abilities and playing it safe on the edges of the map, but only notice the difference if you look at your lives or happen to see the timer. I would appreciate some additional variety in these game modes but the core gameplay is quite enjoyable so I'm not too bothered by it.

As for story, well, there isn't any. No campaigns, no missions, Polychromatic is purely about beating highscores. Polychromatic is an arcade game so this doesn't come as a big surprise, but it's worth keeping in mind if stories are particularly important to you. This game is 97% action and 3% checking leaderboards to see if you finally beat that one guy in front of you.

I have enjoyed the game quite a bit and have played it about 5 hours in total after I got it some time before the actual release and I still plan on playing the game even more. The game is very addictive and due to the nature of the game it can be fired up quickly and played for a quick round or two. Polychromatic has actually become my go-to game for when I need some quick entertainment for a couple of minutes.

Overall Polychromatic is in my opinion a really nice and solid game with gameplay that is simple yet difficult enough to force me to improve my skills. The graphics, while also simple, are pleasant to the eye and work for the intense gameplay. The game also has a nice soundtrack that complements the gameplay and is nice to listen to. I also didn't notice any bugs whatsoever and the game is also light on resources which makes it work nicely on a good portion of the gaming hardware out there. The game does need a controller though and if you don't have one I'd recommend either getting one or being careful about purchasing the game. You can play Polychromatic with just the keyboard but doing that will not be as fun as playing with a gamepad.

Also, thank you Liam for being a worthy opponent in the battle for the highest score.

Get Polychromatic from Humble: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/polychromatic_storefront

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.