HomeNewsAngel At Dusk
If Scorn was a bullet hell game, it’d be Angel At Dusk, which has a frantic demo"Uncompromisingly skeletal"
“Uncompromisingly skeletal”
Image credit:Akiragoya
Image credit:Akiragoya
I was in two minds about whether to write this up, because it is a teensy bit NSFW, but I take solace in the thought that my ideas of NSFW content aren’t so much “tame” as “selectively bred to the point that I can only perceive the colour beige”, and besides which, I haven’t played an outright body horror-themed bullet hell/danmaku shooter before.
The two genres aren’t worlds apart - R-Type’s bosses, for example, are very Gigery, but they’re nothing like as icky as the creatures you face inAngel At Dusk, in which every projectile appears to be some species of maggot, and your ship is a sort of evolving flesh-moth faerie reminiscent of China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station. Perhaps I can interest you in the demo?
Angel At Dusk is “profusely genuine”, “explosively orthodox” and “uncompromisingly skeletal”,according to the Steam page. It’s “skeletal” both in the sense that it features skeletons - the opening levels seem to occur against the backdrop of a massive rib cage - and in that it’s a back-to-basics shmup without any particular gimmicks to weigh it down.
Angel At Dusk is out 12th January 2024, and is perhaps the least Christmassy thing you can play right now, which is probably the best argument for playing it. Just send the kids to bed first.
I’m keen to expand my knowledge of bullet hell games, though it depends on finding a good device to play them on - that Steam Deck purchase is looking more and more tempting. Do you have any recommendations? If you like body horror but aren’t a fan of shmupping, the game I referenced in the headline isworth a trytoo.
