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Voidblazers

by Tijn Kersjes & Jasmin Arikan | get it here
The Voidblazers title screen. Behind the title is the blackness of space, dotted with stars. A few asteroids can be seen.

Up next on A Playdate with Skep, we have one of those top-down on-rails space shooters that you've probably seen at least once in your life. Voidblazers is less interested in innovating on the genre than it is just taking it and doing it really well in a portable little package.

Maybe I'm only surprised by my next statement because I haven't played one of these types of games in many, many years, (and even then it was on my graphing calculator during math class), but Voidblazers has an actual story and characters. You control the Icarus, piloted by the cool and collected Jyn alongside her chaotic but creative partner Echo as they complete missions for the Royal Order in exchange for their freedom. It's a simple plot, but serviceable enough to break up the gameplay between levels.

A screenshot of Voidblazers; the player ship is navigating around two much larger ships.

Each level starts off with a little snippet of dialog between Jyn and Echo (and any other relevant characters), but truthfully, most of the time the plot itself takes a backseat in order to highlight life on the ship. It seems rare in media that you're given a pair of protagonists who are in an established and stable relationship from the outset, and this is a great shame because I am a sucker for a cute couple. Usually if I'm lucky I have to settle for two characters becoming a cute couple over the course of the story, but that is not the case here. The banter between Jyn and Echo is a delight and they are decidedly a capital-Cs Cute Couple. Really, this is all I want from a game and I don't know why developers can't seem to understand this.

A screenshot of Voidblazers; the player ship is in empty space. At the top is a portrait of Echo, a woman with long black hair and a scar over her eye, saying 'It's just a waffle maker, Jyn. What's the worst that could happen?'

As I alluded to earlier, the gameplay is pretty much what you would expect. Your ship moves forward and shoots straight upward, and enemy ships fly in and out and take shots at you sometimes. It's not a “bullet hell”-style game by any means, but boy there sure are some tense sections where you have to dodge hazards coming at you on all sides. I think this is the first time I truly had to put the Playdate’s D-pad through its paces, and I have to say, that cross-shaped piece of plastic is nowhere near as clunky and unwieldy as you might expect. Ducking between a barrage of lasers and ships is somehow impossibly smooth and feels pretty dang good most of the time. I don't know what work the developer had to put in to make it this way, but it paid off.

A screenshot of Voidblazers; above the player ship is a variety of enemy ships in different sizes, many of which are firing bullets in the player's direction.

But this game still has some tricky sections that I can see players struggling with, and some attack patterns felt frustrating to deal with (though this is thankfully not common). After failing one level five times, the game did offer me the opportunity to turn on invincibility for the duration of the stage. I appreciate the consideration in allowing me a way to continue the game, but ultimately I didn't turn it on because it seemed like a very heavy-handed approach. I wasn't interested in letting the stage scroll by as I sat impervious to everything being thrown at me; I still wanted to give it my best, just, with a little more leniency maybe. Perhaps an option to allow the ship to sustain extra hits on each life, and add it to the Settings menu so that I don't have to fail a stage five times to find it.

A screenshot of Voidblazers at an item purchasing screen. The shop is named BOUTIQUE COSMEAU. At the top an alient with a triangular head and four eyes says 'Don't forget, every third pastry is free! So it is!'. Items listed are: Box of Macarons, Tiny Yellow Machine, Cosmic Glow Stick, M2273 Activity Bracelet.

One related mechanic I do happen to like represents the ability to regain health. Every so often, a shooting star will streak across the background, and pressing B while it's on-screen restores a hit—loosely framed as Echo making a wish for the ship's safety. The shooting star isn't much bigger than the other stars on the screen and the effect isn't flashy, so you do have to be on the lookout for it, but it always feels satisfying to pull off even though all you're really doing is timing a button press.

A screenshot of Voidblazers; the player ship is navigating an asteroid field while the text COLLISION ALERT is displayed in big letters at the top of the screen.

Something else you commonly see in these types of games is a variety of weapon upgrades that fire bullet patterns in different ways. Voidblazers does not have this; there are some cannon upgrades, but they only increase your fire rate. Otherwise, you will always be firing single shots straight ahead. I really only think this is a negative because there are quite a few enemies that strictly move vertically and fire straight downward, meaning you have to do a lot of dodging around their shots just to be able to hit them. Which seems dumb to say because yes, that should be part of the gameplay, but it feels like I let a lot of ships scroll off-screen simply because I don't have time to safely engage them. I understand not wanting to provide players with rapid-fire triple-shot guns that will wipe out every enemy as it enters the screen, but perhaps if unique bullet patterns were a time-limited upgrade it might help mix up how the player thinks about their attack options.

A screenshot of Voidblazers; the player ship is between two metal walls on either side. At the top is a portrait of Jyn, a woman with short black hair and an eyepatch, saying 'I got a bad feeling about this...'

The reason you don't want to let the enemy ships pass by, by the way, is because destroying them earns you cash to spend at Cosmeau's shop, which shows up every few levels. You'll need to balance your resources between ship upgrades, miscellaneous items which trigger new conversations, and pastries which are a high-priority item because every third pastry you buy is free. Hey, the crew needs fuel too.

A screenshot of Voidblazers; the player ship facing a very large enemy ship that resembles a moth. Smaller ships are also visible.

I feel like I was bit nitpicky on the gameplay, but really Voidblazers is a fun little shoot-em-up that requires quick reflexes but isn't brutally punishing, and is easy to pick up and put back down to fill in little gaps of time. Good choice if you're looking for something action-oriented on the go.

Verdict: Buy the glowing star stickers. Just trust me on this.

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