A cat in a spacesuit shooting up things out of this world.

Astro Burn

» Shoot-em-up | Bullet Hell | Arcade

Dodge everything. Destroy anything. Stack ridiculous firepower and unleash anime style Catnip powered chaos in this fast paced cute-em-up bullet hell. Play as Astro, a space cat with her robot companion on their journey home, battling through absurd enemies, deadly hazards, and unhinged bosses.

Review

Sasha here! 👋

Astro is a cat with both attitude and creative language. With her robot friend you fight your way through space in this shoot-em-up bullet hell style game full of cute animals, exploding mechs, and many unhinged things that have you doing a double-take.

With this game being less than 600MBs, it's a quick install and only a few button presses until you're straight into the action. Developed by Beyond The Pixels, the team is working on bringing values of the "Golden Age of Gamming" to a modern audience through the concept of modern retro.

Games were quicker to produce, easier to access, and
built around pure, immediate fun. More importantly, they
sparked conversation, fueled imagination, and welcomed
everyone in.   

- Beyond The Pixels

I definitely vibe with the statement "fueled imagination". Games with lower resolution, by which I mean ones that leave gaps in their presentation, leave space for our imagination. They invite the player into the world by letting them consciously, and most often subconsciously, fill in the gaps.

Art

Astro Burn's gameplay art assets are a hodgepodge of artistic styles that come together nicely to give Astro Burn its playful feel. Don't get me wrong here, the art mix is welcomed. It somehow makes the game more welcoming and approachable. Nothing screams "this isn't for me". The visuals convey that it's a low stakes game. If I saw this at a convention I'd probably be drawn in to play for a bit.

Mumble-Speech (Beep Speech)

This section is dedicated to Astro's voice.
It's too damn cute.

Final Thoughts

The game has a free demo on steam. You might like it if you're a casual gamer that's into shorter bursts of play. It's truly a pick up and play game. With it currently on sale 10% it sits at $10.79 CAD.

Coming Up...

Friday's pick is Annie's pick. So she'll be writing something up for you to read then. I bet it'll be something worth playing over the weekend! 🤗


Talk soon,
Sasha