Kryzta and Precision

By: Derek Yu

On: May 16th, 2008

Two new mini-games released by cactus recently! The first is Kryzta, an “anti-shooter” where you defeat your enemies with their own bullets. Collect the power-ups they drop to shield yourself (or press “Z” to unleash a devastating attack with them). Its fun and fast, and features another great track from John Marwin (the musician behind Clean Asia).

Kryzta was made for a minigame competition at The Poppenkast.

The second game, Precision, is all about precision platform jumping. The way jumping works in this game is interesting, though – you have no control over the jump while in mid-air. The length of your jump is determined entirely by your velocity when you leave the ground. It definitely makes it challenging to get through the game’s seven levels, but fortunately, your character leaves a trail which can be reviewed with each successive attempt.

Obviously I’m already a big fan of cactus (some have argued unfairly so!), but I feel like these two games, aside from being imbued with cactus’s inimitable style, do a great job of exploring the nuances of the game mechanics they employ with such needlepoint focus. And the fact that he can make these games so quickly (6 hours for Kryzta) reminds me that we’re at the point where game development can really be as spontaneous as doodling with pen on paper. Sweeeeeet.

(Source: Tim, via the IndieGames.com blog)