Color Chaos, developed by Daniel Riley, a single man team with a few people helping with the music score. Taking control a ship whose colour depicts which enemies it can destroy, Blue, Yellow, Green or Red, playing similarly to many other spaceship action games but with much shorter playtimes. There are no levels to beat or a mission to accomplish, you merely have to survive against a never ending force of ships, trying to get on the leader boards.
Gameplay
The game is pretty simple to learn, WASD or left Thumbstick to move, Left click or right Thumbstick to fire. You can swap between colours with 1-4 or cycle with E and Q, on the controller you can do this with the face buttons and triggers. If you’ve played any spaceship battle game you will know how to play this almost immediately.
The concept of changing colours has been around for years, from platformers like Shift to rock-paper-scissor type games where you need to use the corresponding attack to beat a foe. It’s rather easy to pull off in this game, with Q and E being mostly all you need, as 1 colour can destroy all but itself. However, most enemies will be able to deal with you with the amount on the screen, from shooters, colliders and bouncing enemies filling the screen before long.
The game comes with 2 modes, Classic and Chaos. Classic is just what it says on the tin, you will survive against an easier array of enemies with no different between the waves besides variation of enemies. Chaos is slightly harder with more enemies but it also has random Power-up drops in 4 variations, Red for speed increase, Yellow for a nuke, Blue for spread shot and finally White for a shield.
Since the game is all about points it isn’t always best to kill enemies as soon as you can, in a way similar to Tetris is can be better to stack up enemies to mow them down all at once to build a multiplier faster. A “match” can last between 30 seconds and 10 minutes, even longer if you can last through the increasing number of enemies. However it isn’t just the projectiles themselves you need to worry about, as when enemies spawn in your space that can also be a way for them to kill you.
Overall Thoughts and Feelings
I say this a lot, though I could be easy to please on the music front, but the tracks in Color Chaos are on spot. Mixing in dubstep and techno/trance tunes really fit with the neon colours present in the game along with the speed at which you play. I couldn’t find much issue with looping and a new track plays every time you start a new game or revive after dying, adding to the variety in music you hear whilst playing. The sound effects themselves are a bit poor in comparison, but the music can easily overpower them.
Right now, with the 2 game modes, there isn’t much to do. The classic mode is a bit “too” classic, bordering on boring at points. Chaos feels you with much more excitement and accomplishment, combined with the powerups adding in another factor to how you play. The map is pretty boring too, a simple square with a small surface area to explore, multiple maps with varying sizes, shapes and possibly more walls would make the levels feel more unique.
Overall Color Chaos gets a 7/10, it is rather fun for the first few games, seeing a gradual increase in skill as you learn the mechanics, as well as being great to play while waiting for something else. Pick up and play is one of the best aspects of the game, as it is so similar to other games in the genre, you don’t really need to read a manual at all and it’s very inviting through its colour scheme as well as its design. Right now it is a bit empty to offer much, at £3.99 it might be a bit steep for what else you can get on the market but keep an eye out for possible additions.
You can find the game here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/423720/
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