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A love letter to the likes of Thrust and Gravitar, Gravity Ace has you pilot a ship through tight corridoors and avoid various obstacles and enemies. It's slick and it looks pretty great too with it's sort-of messy pixel-art style with lots of vibrant colours and effects going on. This isn't just a standard gravity-fighting 2D game though, as it's also a twin-stick shooter and a pretty good one.
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Quite challenging actually, since it makes heavy use of physics simulation. Everything that can move uses the physics engine, so you really have to watch out. Boost too fast at the wrong moment and you're done for. There's also a built-in level editor so you can make your own levels and full campaigns, along with being able to share them with others.
While the type of gameplay it offers is very much a small niche now since games have moved onto so many different genres and styles, Gravity Ace should be top of your list if this is the type of game you want to play. Not just for nostalgia but because it's a good arcade-like experience.
Available to buy on Steam and itch.io.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Craggles086 May 27, 2022
Why do all games now require 2 minutes of story before you get to the action?
What was wrong with the old idea of just throwing you in there?
No I don't know why I'm here. I really don't care just let me dodge rocks and shoot the enemy.
---
So I just tried playing the game, read ten pages of story (slight exageration),
and failed to comprehend that UP was Thrust.
Trying to play this game on a Gamepad, I tried every single button on the Gamepad.
Starting again I finally realised that left stick was not just steering but also thrust,
which I hate and had to remap it to right trigger before I was happy.
Think it has been too long since I gamed primarily using keyboard. The C64 used the joystick up for thrust a bit in similar games. But it was harder to try and do left right on a joystick and slip into up by mistake, where modern gamepads it seems pretty easy to slip into the y axis.
Last edited by Craggles086 on 28 May 2022 at 1:19 am UTC
Cheeseness May 28, 2022
Quoting: Craggles086failed to comprehend that UP was Thrust.This is only when "classic mode" controls are enabled - I don't think that's the default?
Quoting: Craggles086Starting again I finally realised that left stick was not just steering but also thrust, which I hateEnabling "classic mode" might be what you're after then, but the previous comment suggested you were already using that? Here's both for reference.
The speedrun options screen also allows in-game dialogue to be turned off if you hadn't spotted that (unless you're referring to the 40 second scroll only the opening of the first level that can be over in about 5 or so if you hold down the fire button - I don't think anything lets you further skip that).
Craggles086 May 28, 2022
Quoting: CheesenessAnother thing to note about this game was that it was made on Linux (the lead developer uses Ubuntu).
Quoting: Craggles086failed to comprehend that UP was Thrust.This is only when "classic mode" controls are enabled - I don't think that's the default?
Quoting: Craggles086Starting again I finally realised that left stick was not just steering but also thrust, which I hateEnabling "classic mode" might be what you're after then, but the previous comment suggested you were already using that? Here's both for reference.
The speedrun options screen also allows in-game dialogue to be turned off if you hadn't spotted that (unless you're referring to the 40 second scroll only the opening of the first level that can be over in about 5 or so if you hold down the fire button - I don't think anything lets you further skip that).
Thanks, classic control setting seems to be working better for me.
Did add left and right steering to the left stick in the steam controls configuration.
(horizontal axis only)
Last edited by Craggles086 on 28 May 2022 at 4:39 am UTC
By the way Thrust had a story too! Sure, it wasn't displayed on the screen before the game started but that's because it was a physical release (remember those?) and it was written inside the cassette inlay card.
mr-victory May 28, 2022
store page:
Reviews
“Gravity Ace is an excellent take on classic twin-stick cave-flying and it feels awesome”
Gaming on Linux
Last edited by mr-victory on 28 May 2022 at 1:40 pm UTC
Quoting: stylonToo bad they're not selling it for £1.99 for extra authenticity!They're probably selling it for less than that in 80s pounds.
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