Probably my favorite new game I saw at GDEX last weekend was The Day We Fought Space, an iOS game currently under development by TursiopsStudios.
I got to play it for a few minutes, and didn’t have enough time to fully explore it, but even from what little I did get to experience, I am blown away by the creative weapons and innovative controls.
Most players will use the touchscreen for controlling the ship, but I preferred playing it with a wireless gamepad as a two-stick shooter. The left stick moves your ship while the right stick very cleverly integrates both aiming and spread. The Y-axis of the right analog stick aims your guns up/down, while the X-axis allows you to spread or narrow the field of fire, to enable you to concentrate fire for big, tough enemies, or spread it out wider to take out masses of smaller enemies.
The game is just packed full of fresh ideas. I didn’t think to get an accurate count, but it looks like you have about 20 (!) different space ships to choose from, each with its own unique weapon and characteristics. It’s almost too much — I’d rather see a complete game made per ship, so that each one can have the opportunity to shine in the spotlight.
The scrolling space shooter has been a bit neglected in recent years, but TDWFS shows that there’s still plenty of life in it. I’d love to see this game ported to consoles and PC platforms.
I don’t see that they’ve announced a release date, but this will be one to watch.