Atomic 79

Atomic 79

Got this as a Birthday gift among other things.
This game is super cool and I played it till i maxed out the weapons.
I had alot of fun playin it, but once its done , its done. I wish there was level
progression going deeper into the crater with newer enemies. Or maybe a badge / prestige
system like COD to reset weapons and keep going till the highest badge is earned. Just something more to strive for.
For the cost though, this game is hella fun. Just needs a little more.

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Ok, I like it a lot but the controls are weird.
You move and aim like you are drunk, that's the best way I can describe it.
Apart from that it's an excellent game.

Light, quick, fun. It has gold AND spooky, scary, skelemans!
I play a few rounds of this when I have a few minutes to kill and want to get a little excitement.

Cheap and simple FPS where you die a lot but also gain gold to upgrade your weapons and buy new toys to kill (?) skeleton boys who just wanna give you a good scary spooky time as skeleboys are to do. Repetitive but the loop works way better then I was expecting, definitely a good wind down game if you want to relax your brain by working at something that requires no thought.

Seen it on vinesauce and need to buy it. Is a great, addicitve game. Short enough to be picked up every now and then for a quick game. Love it!

Originally found this game through Joel from Vinesauce's Youtube channel. It looked interesting and the price was right, so I gave it a whirl.

In this game you play as a nameless astronaut who is on a mission to extract gold from a meteorite. The longer you spend in the area, the more skeletons... excuse me... "skeltins" attack you. The more gold you have on your person, the more each gold pickup is worth. However, the gold you collect only actually counts if you deposit it. This creates an interesting risk-reward scenario where you have to quickly weigh the pros and cons of rushing the gold back to the tractor beam or holding onto it, all while massive armies of pixelated skeltins are charging after you.

You start off with nothing but a tiny pistol, but as you deposit money, you can spend it on purchasing and upgrading weapons. There are a few issues I have with this system, but I'll get to that in a moment.

The gameplay is fun, frantic, and extremely enjoyable. Everything about the game is unbelievably easy to grasp and it does a good job of letting you learn by doing. There is no health bar for you or the enemies (with one exception I won't spoil here); the entire thing is physics based. This means if you break a skeltin apart with a bullet or explosion, he is "dead." If you just take an arm off, he might continue attacking you. If one enemy touches you, you're dead as well.

In addition to your standard weaponry, you also carry a grenade with you at all times that recharges by killing enemies. I like this system as it rewards you for playing correctly and not simply running away from enemies. This is further incentivised by "Skeltin Wraiths," which are extremely fast black Skeltins that appear if you don't stay in the fight. So you've got to keep killing or else!

This game's simple presentation, fast-paced action, and EXTREMELY merciless difficulty curve perfectly embodies that "One more" feel, where you want to hop right back the moment you die.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the music in this game. There's only a couple of songs; a standard level song and a secondary one that can be unlocked. Both of these tunes are very catchy and will make your time blasting away the undead that much more fun. Seriously, the songs are just awesome.

That said, there are some small issues I have with the game. The main issue I have is that (at least for the moment) the weapons seem a tad unbalanced; in particularly the Rocket Launcher. For as expensive as it, the Rocket Launcher is actually really underpowered, even when fully upgraded. It holds a mere 2 rockets, has a pretty nasty 3-second reload, doesn't charge your grenades, flies straight through airborne targets, and worst of all, one of the faster enemies in the game is completely immune to it; only getting knocked away rather than killed.

The Shotgun (when fully upgraded) is the clear winner in my eyes, able to take out several enemies at once, holding about 20 shots, reloading moderately quickly, and having a really fast firing rate. The Machine Gun and Pistol are both passable secondaries when fully upgraded, though the Machine Gun in particular is probably the weakest weapon in the game at first and is the most expensive by far to upgrade fully.

I feel some tweaks to these weapons would really serve to improve the experience. And sadly, once you've upgraded them all, there doesn't seem to be a lot of use for gold, making one of the main points of the game kind of moot.

In addition, I feel sometimes the enemies spawn way too close to you; where one of the faster things seems to materialize right behind me and kill me even if I'd looked in that direct just a second ago. Maybe that one's on me; it's hard to tell.

One last minor nitpick I have is that sometimes it's easy to get stuck for a moment when trying to enter the crater. It's just got some odd physics to it and would be served well by being a little wider. It's a minor annoyance, but I feel it's one worth noting.

But with all that said, is this game worth getting? At 4 dollars, absolutely. Without question. It's fun, there's a lot of humorous details and easter eggs to find, the tunes are positively rockin', and the idea of physics-based enemy health is an intriguing one. I definitely hope there will be more content added in the future, but even if the development team never touches the game again, I absolutely got my money's worth.

What a terrible game. The controls feel SO clunky and only half of them are rebindable, graphics an eyesore, shotgun mechanics make no sense, and some of the enemies are OP.

... but I keep playing it. It's so addicting.

Send help.

Like many reviews here, I first saw this during a LoadingReadyRun's Watch + Play Stream and still enjoying it now.

Executes a simple premise, control scheme and art style with tact. It then build layers of complexity though clever use varied enemies, upgrades and secrets, well into your triple figure tries. Completed by a soundtrack that never grates or imposes and you get a well round experience.

Worth every bit.

Really nice little arena based FPS with short intense action, persistent weapon upgrades which combines with learning the game and the enemies to make a nice smooth difficulty curve to work your way up as you improve your gameplay and your arsenal to enable your expeditions to last longer.

Your task is to drop into a crater and follow around your automated mining robot (FRAND) and pick up the gold he mines from the crater (and the occasional gold from the gold coloured skeltins that sometimes appear). The main thing that really makes the game is the greed mechanic - the first gold you pick up is worth 5, the next is worth 6 (for 11 total), then 7 (=>18) and so on. However if you die before depositing this gold back in the middle of the arena where you started, you get nothing, so you have to balance the risk of losing everything to the every increasing rewards for staying out longer.

As your expeditions last longer more enemy types appear, each with their own gimmick (green skeltins explode when you kill them, which is good, red skeltins move very fast, which is very bad, etc.), but the key is all of them can be killed by one shot (except maybe the boss at the end which I haven't reached), so the difficulty is in numbers and the special abilities some have, which I always find much more rewarding to prevail against than just endless amounts of tanky enemies that you need to empty entire clips to kill each one.

Another nice touch is the start menu - instead of being in a traditional menu system, all the features you would normally find in a game menu are laid out on the interior of the ship, so to turn the in game music off or to a different track, you go over to the radio, or to upgrade weapons you go to the upgrade machine in the other corner, and to start a game you drop through the hole in the floor down to the crater. You even have some motivational posters in there which explain the key mechanics of the game you might otherise miss (how the gold system works, why wraiths appear, how to kill the ball enemies in one shot).

The only down side I really found was once gold is no longer useful and you have no more upgrades to buy it takes away quite a lot of what this game work so well, but before then you will probably have a good few evenings blasting skeltins and being run over by balls while chasing after that big score.

Overall this is highly recommended, and is perfectly suited to lots of short five minute gaming sessions whenever you get time, or longer "just one more expedition, I promise I won't get too greedy this time"

I'm not normally a fan of quick reflex shooters or rogue-lite style games, but this is such a nicely designed solid little game that I can't help but become addicted. The scaling mechanics, both helpful and punishing ones are very clever and intuitive, and FRAND is my favorite new buddy.

(Like several other reviewers I found this via LoadingReadyRun! Hi frands!)

I roughly measure games by a a pound (sterling) per hour. I suspect I'll get 10 hours + out of this. The music is great, the aesthetic is ridiculous, the challenge is demanding and I can see myself already getting better, the upgrading is enjoyable, and overall I'm just going to blow the hell out of the freaky skull bastards in this crater or die trying (one milliion times).

I honestly can't recommend this enough.

Do you enjoy Devil Daggers? Buy this game.

Are you a fan of great, catchy, simple background music? Buy this game.

Do you have the price of a starbucks small coffee burning a hole in your steam wallet? Do it.

If you have any love for FPS, you can and should give this a try. There's very little to lose in buying it and you're supporting what I feel is a very promising new developer who had a great iteration on a classic arena/horde shooter on their hands, and then took those mechanics and pumped every single crevice they could find with so much charm that the end result came out watertight and bulletproof.

Like many others I caught this on the VOD of Watch+Play, and I was thrilled to see just how well everything fit together. And so I want to address the next part of this to the Developer personally: You've done incredible work in the Unity personal engine, and while it suffers a tiny bit from being made in that engine, you made what minor annoyances there were part of the game's aesthetic. Please continue to develop for this game, as there currently is a definite point where a person playing it will run out of things to buy and at that point their interest may drop off. For its price, it is absolutely a finished product, but it feels like the enjoyability of the later stages of play time could be increased.

And even if you don't, please continue making games. I'll have my eye pinned on any new projects on the horizon coming from this studio, and others would be fools not to do the same.

Shoot skeltins and get gold! Fast game "one more go" style. Nice voxel graphics and a sweet soundtrack. Dev seems pretty active in community and with updates. Also cheap.

Edit: After more play time and unlocking some weapons I can say that this little game is an absolute gem. The price is trivial. Heck, in most of the UK it's cheaper than a pint of beer!

I first saw this game watching LRR's Watch & Play series where this was the palate cleanser, I just want to say that for the price, this game is a steal. Absolutely brilliant and painfully addictive. Simple idea, simple mechanics, works so well. I cannot commend the devs enough for this. If you have a couple of bucks to throw somewhere, I strongly suggest you throw them at this game!

Like many reviewers here, I saw this game first as a palate cleanser on LoadingReadyRun's Watch and Play, and bought the game during the stream. I have to say that it is well worth the £2.79, and indeed that I'd consider paying up to £6 for the provided experience. Atomic 79 is a fantastic Devil Daggers-esque arena runner where you follow your trusty mining robot (adorably designated F.R.A.N.D) around a dark crater to collect the gold it digs up, all the while avoiding and shooting the nefarious "Skeltins" that one-hit kill you if they reach your position.

Though seemingly simplistic, the game has a lot of well-designed hidden depth that enriches the experience. Gold pickups' point value is incremented based on how much gold you are already carrying without depositing it, meaning the more gold you're willing to risk, the more you get. Strong, fast enemies spawn if the regular enemy spawn limit is reached, punishing the player for playing defensively and merely avoiding the Skeltins. The player's secondary weapon (a grenade) recharges its use based on enemies killed since it was last used, rewarding aggressive play again. All the weapons (including the grenade) can be upgraded with gold collected, and helpful posters around the starting area appear as features are encountered, explaining how to deal with them.

Also of note is the fantastic soundtrack by Aeronaut, which is consistently entertaining. Overall, Atomic 79 is a great game for either long or short play: a run generally takes under 5 minutes, though I find myself chaining runs together for over an hour at a time. The price is almost trivial, and great value for the received content, and I recommend everybody with an interest in roguelites, arena runners, voxel art, cute robots, neat electronic tunes, cool and well thought-out game mechanics, moon craters, and feelings of horror and impending doom as the grenade one threw illuminates the hordes of enemies ready to replace those caught in its blast check this game out.

Bought this after watching LoadingReadyRun play it on their stream, definitely worth the money.
The game looks great, the design of F.R.A.N.D. is really cute and the overall aethetic really achieves the look of a game that is fun and fast paced. Gameplay wise, it manages to achieve constant tension over whether you'll be able to get back to bank the gold but doesn't become overbearing.
Great game, hope to see more in future.

This is an amazing little arena shooter.

So, you're a person with a robot in a cursed crater in space. Possibly on the moon? The gravity is low, so the controls take some getting used to. I don't think they're bad, they just make your character feel like you have momentum.
Your robot is mining gold from the crater for you, and your job is to get the gold back to your base, while defending yourself from an onslaught of skeltins, skells and worse. There's a really clever greed mechanic that gives you more gold for waiting longer to deposit in in the bank, with the obvious penalty of losing everything you're carrying if you die. It's absolutely gotten me several times, but it's just so tempting ...
Anyway, it's difficult, but with the persistent upgrade system, you feel like you're actually progressing. I don't know what the endgame is, the longest I've been able to live is just over 3 minutes. I know I'm going to have fun finding out.

So, other things.
This game feels like it's tuned to make you grin, even while it's kicking your teeth down your throat. From the little informational posters in your base//office to the voxel-cute enemies (except the bone balls. those things are freaky) the whole thing feels like it's got an great sense of humor.
The sound design is solid, and the music is very good. (OST DLC PLS?) I think it might get repetitive at some point, but I haven't lived long enough for that yet.

This game is great, the price is insane. If you like this kind of game just buy it. Don't wait for a sale, buy it. It's $4. You can afford that. Buy it.

Saw this on Watch + Play as a pallete cleanser, bought it during the stream.
There is so much depth here in how greedy you choose to be, and in turn, how much you decide to spend on weapons. The soundtrack is great, F.R.A.N.D is shaped like a friend, the time from death to restart is nice and short, and the difficulty ramping as you manage to survive in the crater for longer simply adds more gameplay possibility, as you adjust to new threats.
TL;DR For four bucks CAD? Get the game.

Was just watching Loading Ready Run stream this game so i picked it up, super fun, love the art style and music. Greed mechanic is really fun. can't wate to play more.

Its a fun and interesting take on shooters with a different kind of "Pixel" style. I'm not a huge fan of the music like everyone else is, but that's just me and my taste in music. It does not get repetative or annoying as you play. What is annoying to me is just how frequently the skeletons spawn. And in tandem with that I'd say the collison with the dozens of fallen skeletons can be deadly if you don't notice them. Although I don't think that's a bad thing since who wouldn't be stumbling trying to walk on hundreds of various bones?
I feel like the game will be much easier and more exciting the more you progress and gain more weapons. You DEFINITELY have to keep moving or die in seconds since the mobs will spawn where everywhere you can't see.
The game is not without its quirks and bumps, but I think if the developers work little bits on the game it can be something great.

Fun little game, has a good edge of difficulty but the movements a bit slippy and I have a hard time managing that with an uncountable legion of skeltins coming at me at every angle.