Vibrant

By: ithamore

On: October 1st, 2010

Vibrant is an high-speed arena shmp by #ponce that faces you against AI clones of your ship. Their number and aggressiveness increase with each level (their power and variety also increase occasionally), and the increased challenge begins show after the first few easy levels. After level 20, it is difficult to get through a wave without dieing at least once. Just surviving the initial barrage of fire requires as much luck as it does skill.

What makes the Vibrant fun, though, are the generous powerups and the game’s quick restart after death. The blurbs that show up after dieing are also a nice touch. The bullet time slows down time enough to pull off some tight maneuvering, and once you’ve picked up 2 or 3 weapon+ powerups you can fire a shower of bullets that surpass the blast.

I wish there was a multiplayer version, and the traps are annoying. I sometimes mistaken them for blast powerups when their gray surfaces are highlighted too brightly. And if you don’t like the music, there is no in-game method for muting. I like it, but those who don’t enjoy techno can replace the .ogg in the game’s folder by renaming another song to the original’s name. But I would suggest picking something you want to hear over and over again or merge several songs into one.

The highscore is only for your current play session, which I didn’t like at first. But since I prefer to play Vibrant just for fun and the chance to get a good run, it doesn’t really matter. And when I do have a good ship built up, and I’ve made it through several levels by the skin of my teeth, I can get worked up enough to break a sweat. The last game to do that to me was Shoot First.

For those who don’t like installers, there’s a zipped version linked down in the changelog. Also, the controls: C/Ctrl fires, X/Shift for turbo engines, Z/space catches powerups (press twice to use the bullet time), WADS and the arrows can be used for movement. The mouse buttons can also be used, but the order of commands felt awkward for me.

(Source: Pixel Prospector)

Update: Some or most ATI graphics cards might not be able to run the game.

  • Dodger

    Wow, very cool arena shooter, great music too. I was having a blast but boy is the game dizzying. My eyes had to re-adjust for the real world when I stopped playing :-) I don't know if it's just me but because of the graphics, it felt almost like a pseudo simulated 3D effect because my eyes really were bugging out after a little while and I felt myself zoning in on the game and drowning everything else out, and I'm not the type to get motion sickness off a video game (though I have a friend who can't play 1st Person shooters because they experience motion sickness every time they attempt to play one). Maybe I was being hypnotized in some way between the graphics and music, I don't know. I lost track of time while trying Vibrant out though. Anyone else getting a little tripped out by the game?

  • http://twitter.com/p0unce #ponce

    Hi, Dodger, developer here.

    Getting tripped out is totally the point :)

    I'm a bit puzzled about by the motion sickness.

    I develop with a 85hz screen and don't get any motion sickness. Maybe try setting your screen refresh to the max (usually 75hz on flat displays).

    Of course it's obviously visible on the 30hz Youtube video.

    I actually tried to eliminate temporal aliasing with motion blur but that didn't worked out that well. Maybe I should remove these blue lines.

  • Dinare

    Awesome game. The only problem is that there's no way to turn off the music and somebody misspelled “lose” in the tips section.

    Does anybody know of a way to turn off the in-game music entirely so that I can have music going in the background instead?

  • http://audio.cagames.com DJGeki

    I actually enjoyed the music quite a bit… but I don't mind trance-like stuff. Hell, even if I didn't embrace that style of music, it still fits the bill for this game.

    I absolutely LOVE the synth bass hit when you destroy a ship :) Perfect!!

  • http://twitter.com/p0unce #ponce

    The problem with playing another music is that the sound fxs are all tuned to this very soundtrack (tone-wise). I believe it is necessary for the “entrancing” effect.
    Since several people asked for it there will be a mute option (M). I'm not sure you'll find a more fitting music.

  • Que

    Apart from one glaring flaw, I think this is pretty close to perfect.

    The problem is that the player is forced to rely heavily on the minimap, and given extremely fast-paced gameplay, flicking one's attention between it and the main screen is an enormous pain in the ass (perhaps even an unnecessary challenge).

    Minimaps in action games tend to be pretty bad, but here it's a dealbreaker. If the author consolidated the main screen and minimap information into one display that better exploits players' peripheral vision, this would be a great game.

  • Paul Villapiano

    A radar overlapping the game is a nice idea, but maybe it should be toggled.

    I had little trouble with the radar in the corner. I often was able to focus on both it and the rest of the game at the same time. I found mutlifocusing somewhat enlightening. And when I was able to pull off some lucky moves while focusing on just my ship, I also had a lot of fun.

  • http://twitter.com/p0unce #ponce

    @Que, i've tried to draw arrows towards ennemies in the peripheral but the game become too much predictable. Flicking attention between the radar and the main screen is the intended gameplay. People start with ignoring the radar, then ignoring the main screen, then they use a mixture of the two.