Chugging Along
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We first got wind of Spry Fox’s Steambirds Alliance all the way back two years ago, just before PAX Prime 2015. At PAX West 2017, I had the chance to sit down and give a bit of the massively multiplayer online shoot-’em-up a go, and it was a rather cool playground for cooperative bullet hell with an RPG twist.
After zipping around for a while, the gameplay loop became fairly clear (shoot things, get loot, get better at shooting even bigger things), but there was this sense of missing some context. It was easy to grasp and fun for a few minutes at a time, yet the demo itself didn’t do much to explain why we should stick around.
The PAX build thrust players right into the thick of the action. Just start it up, join a server, and start blasting away. Though it bills itself as bullet hell, it’s actually a bit more lenient than your typical Ikarugas or DoDonPachis. The planes can take a few hits without taking too much damage, and they gradually regrow their health over time.
Other players would show up on the map, with icons indicating their direction to enable quick, informal team-ups. Additionally, onscreen would be icons pointing to the big bads that needed some lead put into them. There was a good variety of enemy behaviors, so while the strategies remained fairly consistent (team up, avoid the bullets, shoot the evil things), the tactics could vary from battle to battle.
Downed enemies would drop random weapons and gear, which could also lead to changes in our tactics. I started the demo with a simple (but weak) machine gun, but eventually stumbled upon a high-level sniper rifle that would unleash two hard-hitting, straight shots before a fairly long reload time. Other weapons like spread guns and homing weapons were also there.
More intriguing was the prospect of different planes to fulfill distinct roles. I only had the chance to experience the basic all-around fighter whose special ability was a gas cloud that could damage pursuers, but a Spry Fox representative mentioned other planes better suited for acting as medics or tanks. For some of the bigger enemies, he described scenes of dozens of players coming together to take them down.
So the progression is a nice, steady drip of marginally better equipment, and the battles can get big and quite hectic. But after spending around 20 or so minutes following an icon to a bad guy, blowing it up, and then doing it all over again, I couldn’t help but yearn for a bit more variety or at least some justification for all this. Spry Fox will include a story mode in the final game to provide more direction.
I’ll be taking a closer look during the Friday closed beta get-togethers to see how those parts I didn’t get to experience pan out as we approach the launch. The PAX demo did exactly what it aimed to do, which was to get people playing and getting a good grasp of the bulk of the action, but it felt incomplete without all the stuff that happens in between the shooting sequences.
