Geometry Arena

Excellent coffee break Space SHMUP arcade game with tons of special effects and fun upgrades. Suffers from the usual conundrum these build game SHMUPs have which is "how do you encourage the naturally conservative player to try something obscure when a flat damage boost is also on offer and always going to seem mighty appealing?", but you can't really fault a particular game for a common thread in the genre, and other than that its a perfect 10 to me. Besides, the solution to this "issue" is in the players' hands all along: just be brave enough to be creative and see how it goes!
Most noteworthy here is a very creative system for managing the difficulty in an agile manner where you can update the difficulty in real time during a run BUT it increases both enemy power and rewards. This is the first game I've seen that bakes difficulty management into a true game play decision, rather than offering "Would you like to play my game in special mode for losers because you were too stupid to appreciate my game design genius?".
The modulating difficulty and exploration of SHMUP choices tie together: because you can modulate the difficulty, you can also have more confidence in this game to try whatever the hell you feel like without worrying it'll instantly scotch you run. So new builds become more about: "on what difficulty will this run be able to get to?" rather than "will this run be able to complete?" and I think that's cool. I wouldn't want every game to play that way, but it's awesome that this one does. That also makes it great for showing all levels of gamers from that weird friend from college that's always online to oldies who struggle with a computer.
So what do I mean? The game actually tackles difficulty in a simultaneously balanced and rewarding manner, where you modulate the difficulty yourself LIVE DURING A RUN, which sounds weird, but because you get more rewards for cranking the difficulty, the idea is that you are meant turn the difficulty up and up and up to whatever your build can handle in real time. This deliberate game play element is therefore closer to a mechanic than a SETTING - you never feel guilty whichever level you're at and that's a stroke of genius that really works!
While the clever difficulty system alone nets this game an enthusiastic suggestion from me that you play it just speaking as a game design enthusiast, it's also worth noting that the rest of the SHMUP game play fun is also excellent on the merits of the fundamentals too! There are a diverse range of novel upgrades plus the usual suspects, with transparent statistics that are easy to follow and well documented for players at all times in the GUI.
This game is an absolute steal on sale, but it's well worth it at full price for some coffee break fun over the next few weeks of your life too! Well, at least for everyone but players on an extremely tight budget and looking to maximize playtime per dollar or something, but even using that criterion, you could still certainly do a whole lot worse than Geometry Arena! This was probably the most fun I've ever had with a SHMUP, best in breed since Nova Drift.
So obviously, Highly Recommended!

It's bloody cheeky brilliant and it's easily worth a pair of quids mate so don't be daft and wangle this merry maker and you'll be rightly chuffed.

Dev's technical ingenuity allowed me to reach the bullet damage of above 2^63.

gemotry

Very good bullet hell game about geometry shooting at other geometry.
This game can get a bit repetitive considering not much changes from run however this game has a goldmine of content considering the cheap price! It also is really fun and has many difficulty and modifiers to choose from!
Overall, I would recommend this game, 9/10