Pest Apocalypse from Kikimora Games is out now, a fresh Bullet Heaven blending together the worlds of Vampire Survivors with something like Crazy Taxi and it's thoroughly chaotic. I've made this joke before, and I'll do it again, this is VANpire Survivors. Look it's a good joke okay.
What you get here is a quality mixture of mechanics. The repeated runs of building up a crazy combination of weapons and abilities popularized by Vampire Survivors, but with the spin on it that you're in a fast-moving vehicle equipped with a nitro boost. Each pizza you deliver enables you to pick a new passenger with their own weapon, and you really can make a pretty wild ride.
The developer sent over a release key and I've been having a real blast with it, sending my little van speeding across the map to collect and deliver one pizza after another, while also being chased by hordes of creatures.
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Not only do you get to pick various passengers (weapons) after you do a successful delivery, but there's also a weapon upgrade system too. As you wheel-spin and drift your way around the map squishing all sorts of creatures, you can collect blue upgrade orbs they drop to level up, and depending on how many you have when you deliver the pizza, you'll then be able to further enhance your weapons.
Aside from that there's a meta upgrade system too. As you progress through a run you'll earn tips for doing a good job, which you can then use in the main menu to do meta upgrades like passenger damage output, attack cooldown, max vehicle health and more.
I also really love the silly cinematic camera that appears when you launch your vehicle over ramps. A fun little touch. It's a game that only gets funnier the more you play it. Across the maps you can find temporary pickups too like a big ball with spikes attached by a chain to your van. The physics in Pest Apocalypse can be a little funky, but that only adds to the comedic charm here I think.
Very similar in style to Earl vs. the Mutants that I looked at previously, but here you have a specific purpose pushing you on to keep going, and in terms of style, overall feel and content - Pest Apocalypse is a bigger and better game (with a higher price to match). Pest Apocalypse also has Native Linux support, built with Godot Engine.
Pest Apocalypse is surprisingly challenging too, a lot more so than I would say other Bullet Heaven games are. Partly due to the vehicle speed and your turning circle, making dodging enemies all that more challenging. But also the vehicle health, it doesn't actually take much to get destroyed if you're not careful. All that only adds to the intense feeling of needing just one more drive.
Another nice feature is that you have a tip level. I mentioned earlier that you gain tips for all the deliveries, but this adds up to its own special counter as well and each time it levels up after run you then get to pick a special unlock as well. This could be new drops from enemies that will appear during a run, new passengers (weapons), items and more.
No problems at all on Desktop Linux (Kubuntu 24.10) with the Linux version. Pest Apocalypse is also pretty much a perfect Steam Deck game. Performance is good and the runs are reasonably short too.
A very firm recommendation. Now I need van to come and deliver me some pizza. For now I'll settle for another run to see what ridiculous weapon combo I can make. Go get it, great fun.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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