Disclaimer: I received a copy of Shutshimi from IndieGamerChick to play as part of the #IndieSelect series, where games are given out to people to play and help spread the word of under-the-radar indie games on various platforms. The game Steam Key was given and received without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and that experience be shared through social media. All words and screenshots in this article, unless otherwise stated are from my own experience playing Shutshimi.
Systems: Windows, 3DS, Wii U, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, Linux, & macOS.
Original Release Date: August 25, 2015
Publisher: Choice Provisions
Developer: Neon Deity Games
Shutshimi is a horizontal arcade shooter mixed with a dose of Wario Ware-esque, with associate writers from Monty Python and a budget of a few thousand dollars, and is a lot of fun to play.
In Shutshimi, you play as a gun-toting memory-challenged fish who is self-tasked with defending his waters from enemy invaders. You face the right, enemies come swimming at you from the right to the left, and like any shmup, you have an arsenal of weapons to use against your aggressors. But the game is not quite that simple. Each stage is 10 seconds long and you spend those 10 seconds shooting and dodging as many enemies as possible. Shooting enemies scores points and when you reach a specific point total (2500, 5000, 10000, etc), you earn a free life. In between each stage, you are given the choice to choose one of three items that are randomly selected that will either be used in the next stage only, or will modify your weapon until you change weapons. There are also hats you can wear.
That is essentially the base of the game. You have to survive through stages that typically last 10 seconds. In every fifth stage, you go up against a boss and have to do as much damage within that 10 seconds or you continue where you left off when they show up again five stages later and you do not have to kill them within the 10 seconds, which is a very nice touch; there have been a couple of times where I started the boss stage and took them out after one hit because I had previously damaged them to the point of almost death. How you are equipped when you go into the boss fight will greatly affect your ability to take them out as quickly as possible and that, like nearly everything else in the game can be randomized.
The shop which will always show up between stages is populated with three randomized items and what those items do can be a bit confusing for the first handful of times you play the game. The text for the items sometimes changes so when you see the Dragon Statue it will not always say "I'm ordering a couple of pizzas. What do you want? On mine I'm definitely getting increased bullet hardness. It also comes with free Wi-Fi. So there's that too." or "Surgeon General's warning: waterproof cigars contain increased bullet hardness. Please pick this one. We worked hard implementing this." There is consistent text about "increased bullet hardness" which means that this particular item will increase the amount of damage that whatever your currently equipped weapon does. I am guessing that the "1" next to the item means that it will only work during one stage and therefore would not stack if you picked the Dragon Statue twice in a row. And while you are reading all of this text about a single item, there is an eight-second timer counting down and once it reaches zero, you are stuck with whichever item your cursor was on. Yes, eight seconds is all you have to visually analyze which items are being offered, and especially in the first dozen times, the screen pops up, trying to parse what the text even means while hoping you do not pick that one item although you have forgotten which one, that inverts your control scheme for shits and giggles.
This limited-time item purchasing mechanic is one of the frustratingly brilliant aspects of the game. Because I only had eight seconds to decide which item to choose and knowing that not all items were as beneficial as increasing my damage from the Dragon Statue or giving me three guns from the Cherries, I knew that I needed to be strategic in which item I picked otherwise I could end up with decreased movement speed, or worse, double movement speed for the player and enemies. But with games lasting 20+ rounds, it was not always easy to remember which item did what because I may not have registered that the squeaky-looking-hammer thing slowed down your movement because I also focused on the text for the item. And then there are items (cassette tape, basketball, etc) that let you equip hats which sometimes do nothing but give you cool looking and maybe change the music, other times give you a special attack, and other times might obscure your vision. Hats though only last as long as your current life or until you equip a new hat. And as mentioned above, oftentimes there are clues in the description text hinting at what the item does, but having multiple descriptions for the same items throws me off a bit so it is hard to remember what did what, which I am guessing is part of the point. I did look up an item description list though, which I do not think I would consider cheating, just a workaround to needing to pause the game to write down information and destroying the flow.
After I had read what the items did and which ones I knew I wanted to avoid, it only took me two more attempts to beat the game.
But did I beat the game?
After the congratulatory VICTORY screen, there was a VICTORY? screen showing what looked to be a reincarnated version of the final boss, but I could be wrong. Also, Neon Deity Games confirmed that I was actually only halfway through the main game, which made sense because the game continued after the VICTORY screen. I initially thought that maybe the game would continue indefinitely so you could rack up a sick high score along with more enemies per stage resulting in increased difficulty, but the design of the submarine and the background implied that there was more game to play beyond your VICTORY.
I do have, I think, just one criticism. I wish there was a little more variety in the enemies. You have the sharks, the trio of squid, the water bears (at least that is what I called them) the purple jellyfish, a deep one, an egg-spitting pelican, and a cat in a submersible that fires a tri-linear barrage of projectiles at you. Oh, and there are butts on surfboards too in a specific stage. Now that I type that out, I guess there are more enemies than I initially thought, but every time I play, by the time I defeat the second boss, I am already growing tired of the enemies that come at me in the same color scheme and same attack patterns. Of course, if I am griping about predictable attack patterns I should be better at the game than I really am, so that is on me. In my own defense, side-scrolling shmups are not really my game of choice because at times I get visually overwhelmed when they become bullet-hellathons, but Shutshimi is rarely that because most of the enemies just fly at you while very few have projectiles apart from the bosses. Really it just boils down to that I can get frustrated with feeling like I am not playing as well as I think I should be
Shutshimi is just a fun game with a great sense of humor that does not seem to take itself too seriously with a lot of great music (that I am likely to get to next week) that has an interesting mechanic that I found to be less frustrating with a little bit of online help. I do not know if I will actually finish the game (beating the bosses twice I believe), and I am almost positive that I will not be able to beat the game on Heartless mode (more enemies, only one life, no extra lives). although I did impress myself by making it to Wave 8 and defeating the first boss on Wave 5; so I guess that means I do not totally suck And after this first experience with Neon Deity, I think I will need to look further into their Switch/Steam catalog and find out what they have available.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
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