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.