Geek Errant Reviews: Atomic 79

Atomic 79 is one of those types of games I love. Take a simple concept and add just enough minor tweaks and charming touches to make it an enjoyable game. No complications. Just well crafted fun.

The steam page for Atomic 79 covers the whole game’s motive:

Your destination is Aurum Crater – the most gold dense meteorite impact crater in the universe. Many companies have tried setting up mining operations there, but none have lasted more than a few hours. Now it’s your turn. Drop in, extract the gold, and try to survive the onslaught of cursed monsters the crater houses.

The game is a survive the wave style first person shooter. As the latest miner to try your luck, you leave the safety of your office above the crater, drop down a beam of light and begin following your only companion. F.R.A.N.D as they dig up gold for you to collect.

In the darkness of the crater, F.R.A.N.D is one of the few bright things, moving around the map, pausing to dig up gold and creating bright spots of illumination. From out of the darkness, come skeletons. One touch and you lose. The only thing to do is RE-kill them. So you kill skeletons and collect gold. Sometimes you’ll meet gold skeletons who drop extra resources. As the timer ticks upwards and you survive longer, more and more threatening enemy forms appear. A flying flaming skull that homes in on your character and can’t be killed, only stunned for a short time.
A rolling ball of bones which pushes other skeletons out of the way, with a ball of blue gas in the centre. Invincible unless you land a shot on the gas ball.
You fight monsters, collect gold, deposit that gold in a tractor beam in the centre of the crater, and survive as long as you can.
Die, and you keep whatever you’ve deposited, but you’ve got to restart the level.

Aesthetically, the game is cohesively designed, with chunky characters, enemies and thick projectiles. Mostly, darkness is used to mask what’s going on in the crater. The swarm of skeletons lurk in the darkness. The only visual elements that offer difference are some gorgeous lighting effects (I’ll get to them) plus some mining carts, boxes and obstacles left over from the previous efforts to loot the crater.

Shooting is surprisingly fun. A small mix of weapons starts with a pistol, and as you collect gold, you can spend to upgrade your guns. This includes higher ammo capacity or faster reload speed.
The other purchasable weapons include machine guns and shotguns, and you can always carry your pistol as well. There’s choices to be made as to what kind of playstyle players can use, but every option is viable.
What this means is that the game feels frenetic, constantly trying to avoid being encircled by the horde as you swivel and reload.

The game is a delight to play. Shooting feels very satisfying for the player with projectiles having real punch, and the movement has a slight floaty quality that matches the space crater theme. The most tense moments come when you jump to avoid some detritus around the map and realise, far too late, that you won’t stop before you sail into a horde of skeletons.

The best elements though are those little touches I mentioned earlier. The player speed is just fast enough to outrun most basic skeletons in a straight line, but if you strafe, you’re likely to accidentally get wiped by a flanking enemy. So the player has to constantly move, and think about that movement.

All of this is set to a fantastic high energy musical track by an artist named Aethernaut. It’s fast, thumping and sets the mood for the game. The only vocal is the charming refrain of “super spooky” which comes as a burst of energy in the Tetris-like melody.

Otherwise, The use of lighting in particular is fantastic. As mentioned, F.R.A.N.D. radiates light. They’re a beacon of safety. The centre of the map has a glowing beam which the player must deposit collected gold in. These two effects give the player something to constantly aim for among the swarm of skeletons shrouded in darkness. It also catches the player off guard when they start throwing coloured enemies with lighting effects in to the mix. Gold skeletons provide a valuable target, the skele-balls are a whirling dervish of death that just. Won’t. Die.
There’s green toxic exploding skeletons to avoid getting to close too.
These all provide delightful visual variety in a game that could have been incredibly bland by concept alone.

Out of all the lighting tricks though, there’s one that stands out head and shoulders above the rest.
The player has grenades which can be re-added to the inventory by killing enough skeletons in a wave. Grenades can be thrown, and when they make contact with a skeleton, they explode. This is a super handy get out of jail free card, which allows the player to rescue themselves from possible mistakes. Except the grenade also illuminates a wide area around the explosion point.
Which reveals exactly how many skeletons are surrounding the player at any given time. I won’t hesitate to admit, there were multiple occasions where I triumphantly stopped a few skeletons from taking me out, only to see a tide appear from a flank I had previously thought safe. It has a panicking effect which is just the perfect counterbalance to how powerful the grenade can be as a weapon.

Most important though is the gameplay loop design, the constant balance the player has to make between aggression and gold collection. Collecting gold is the object of each run in the game. So you can survive longer against the swarm.
Except if the player does nothing but dodge skeletons and collect gold, the skeletons will fill the crater, and some will be replaced with wraith skeletons. Which are tougher and faster and taller than the player. So the player will lose.
But conversely, if the player is too aggressive, they won’t collect (and deposit) enough gold, meaning they’ll struggle with the basic weapons as the skeletons get more numerous and deadly.
The game is balanced perfectly,with every masterfully crafted aspect coming together to build a cohesive and brilliant whole.
This is such a small game, yet there is so much love and dedication in the way that the different systems work. It’s excellent to play and the passion of the developer shines through in every seam.

For only £2.79? How can you not want to give this a try? Go find Atomic 79 on Steam for PC.