Dual action. Literally.

If you own a dual action gamepad, i.e. one with 2 sticks, Gunroar is a game you MUST try out. If you don’t own that, you might wanna try it out anyway as there are also game modes that are well playable without a gamepad.

To me, Gunroar is a typical old-skool action “shooter” game implemented using modern techniques (others may also want to call it a geometry wars clone). In other words: success. 🙂 The wireframe and polygon style rendering is refreshing, the action is fast, the music and sound effects perfectly fit the bill, did I mention fast action? 🙂 It really blows your senses. 🙂

What really puts this game apart, is it superb dual action gameplay. The game sports several game modes:

  • Normal mode: one stick to navigate. If you start to shoot, the navigation stick becomes a strafing stick. Also “torpedos” available.
  • Twin stick mode: real dual action 🙂 Use one stick to navigate, the other to aim/shoot.
  • Double play: if you thought twin stick was the fastest action your brain can process, try double play. You have to control two gunboats simultaneously! The combined position of the 2 gunboats determines the shooting direction. Your brain might protest in the beginning, but try it and you will enjoy. 🙂
  • mouse mode: use arrows for navigation and pointer to aim and fire. Don’t think this mode would be inferior because of the focus on gamepads in the other modes!

But the best part is: all this action seems so hyperkinetic and stressing, but once you get the hold of it, it all feels quite natural and works even relaxing 😉 Also, each game mode has its own distinct gameplay. It’s amazing what you can do with so little. 🙂

A few factoids to close. Gunboat is:

  • written by some Japanese guy Kenta Cho.
  • written in D
  • uses SDL
  • uses the ant build system
  • is not open source :/

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