Inside a Star-filled Sky

Perfect example of how NOT to use procedural generation: as the content of the entire game. This is an unfinished program with no vision. Your only purpose is to pilot around from randomly generated level to randomly generated level finding better upgrades so that you can kill the enemies in the way more easily.

I actually think this is an absolutely brilliant concept, and wish somebody else attempted it. Unfortunately, as far as I know nobody else has. This could be a good game, but a few things are wrong: 1) There is no point to playing the game, since things go infinitely backwards and forwards you might as well have never tried doing anything. There is no reward for continued play. 2) Bullet patterns are mostly undodgable and relies on your health bar to tank hits. A lot of shmup games do this and they usually suck. You can do this thing where you enter an enemy to make them suck more if they're giving you trouble, but it takes so long it's not worth the time. (but then again there is no reward for continued play so do whatever you want) 3) Some levels aren't even related to the thing they spawn from. This usually happens in powerups, where you get in real close and randomly some open area spawns out of a design. It would be much more impressive if you always could tell what you're inside...

Interesting concept and gameplay but nothing there to make you want to continue playing after an hour.

If you enjoy the concept of games as art than this could be for you. I find it to be one of those games I can get lost in for a few 15 minute sessions here and there. There are some points where it's either over the top difficult or because of the power ups you've achieved it's too easy but those moments in between are great fun.

This game has a super-interesting high concept to it. However, without any defined goal, it's ultimately pointless. There is no end-game. Have fun playing forever, or, more likely, stop after an hour or so and never pick it up again. This is Jason Rohrer at his Rohreriest.

This game is unmistakably a return to a time when video games were more raw, unfinished, and simple. That this game appears to have depth and complexity is itself an illusion. I can count on my fingers the number of new things you will encounter as you play through the levels. My first time, I went as low as level -40. I couldn't seem to figure it out and every time you die, you go down a level. But then I started over, and am currently stuck at around level 118. There is a room full of robots that shoot enough bullets to make a japanese top-down shooter choke, and so to get past it, I went "inside" one of the enemies to try and disable it's weapons through giving it weaker powerups. Instead, now I am trapped inside of it by more crazy robots. The way I got as far as I have was not actually through a whole lot of careful planning or picking the right items. Instead, I find that I progressed faster by running straight past or through things to the exit. Since when you die you automatic...

Interesting concept where you dive inner(or outer) from yourself, an enemy or power up in order to make the subject in question weaker, stronger or different in order to get to the "next level". Once you figure out the concept of the game... well, that's pretty much it. There is no story so going through each "level" is pretty much like playing in an arcade, where you are just going for the points. That's not a bad thing, but for me, I wish there was more. I still recommend the game due to the fact that it has a VERY unique gameplay system. If anything, this game is still worth the trip, even if it is just for a little while!

"What if you could enter an object in a level and find a level inside of it? What if you could enter an object in that level and find another level inside of that?" is basically the entire point of this game, and the answer is just that it'd be a procedurally generated game like so many other indie games nowadays, but wrapped in an attempt to make some kind of fancy artistic point out of it. Honestly, it's exactly what it looks like, though frequently far more boring than the screenshots depict. The game is described as: an "infinite, recursive, tactical shooter". By infinite and recursive, the designer of course means procedurally generated, and by tactical it means you'll often be sitting behind a corner waiting for the one time you can dash out without instantly dying, or choosing to run away into a different level because discretion is the better part of valor. If you're expecting good top-down shooter mechanics, look elsewhere. The artistic point isn't worth $8, and while it man...

Of all the hipster indie trash I've played, this is by far the most pretentious and pointless.

I really liked this game. It was frustrating AS SHIT sometimes, but I still enjoyed it a ton. It does have a far-off goal for you to reach eventually, and it was very pretty. Would recommend.