Dimension Drive: Not Your Average Bullet Hell

Yesterday I caught the last 20 last minutes of a twitch stream featuring Dimension Drive, played by Alejandro Santiago, who is one of the developers from ‘2 Awesome Studio’ (the guys behind this game). While it’s been around around for quite some time (the studio had a successful Kickstarter campaign last year), I completely missed this 2D bullet hell piece of awesomeness.

The moment I read that DD is a comic book styled Shoot’em Up with a female protagonist, I was hooked! I’m a bit of a sucker for great stories and 2D games, to be honest. I guess they remind me of my childhood and those happier times when you could actually try out a game and get introduced to a unique idea, concept, and experience, unlike 90% the contemporary games mowadays (IMO, at least…). So when I find devs who are willing to play around with that “retro” concept, I have to pay homage.

I initially thought that this is just a cool looking but standard bullet hell type of game. However, it seems that these guys really went all in and actually designed something completely…let’s use the word peculiar. While the game is still undergoing the development process,  it is going to be a co-op, two player style, split screen style game.  As it stands now, the single player mode looks super challenging: the screen is split vertically in the middle (take a look at that screenshots down below) and you’re transported from one side to the other as though being ported through different dimensions. Sound tough?  Well, here’s the actual tough part: you’re continuously fighting waves of enemies and trying to find your path through a labyrinth of bullets and explosions, in two games at the same time.

I could say that I am intimidated, but then again, I’ll be playing Dimension Drive for sure. I like 2D games (I could play freaking Galaga for hours!), but it seems like it’s become a trend to make these games insanely difficult to play, so here’s hoping there’s a difficulty slider. Alpha access is already available for purchase, you can visit their page here, with the final release to be announced this year, and I can’t wait for the final cut.

Sadly,  this honestly the first time that I’m hearing (reading) about 2 Awesome Studio and I’m thrilled that I found this gem. Because we’re all about making sure indie devs get some love, I want to introduce the crew.  David Jimenez and Alejandro Santiago are the co-founders of the company, but they have some impressive people on their staff:

We love this stuff at FoH: space art, and story-driven gameplay, and Dimension Drive doesn’t lack here. So the basic set up follows Jackelyne Tywood, also known as Jack, the pretty little looking thing in to my right (or below if you’re on mobile!). You, the player, is piloting a space combat vehicle capable of transporting through space and time as you fight against your invader,  an alien race that goes by the name of the Ashajuls. Naturally, as you are uncovering Jack’s story you’re also killing a bunch of them mean alien suckers, or at least trying to survive long enough to find out more about this intriguing character, depending upon your motivation for playing.

Oh, and FYI, the guys from 2 Awesome Studios already won an award for this game, and there are plenty of backers that can’t wait to take a shot at the final version (nor can I!).

For now, you can follow their dev blog here for updates, and test out that alpha build. We’ll be bringing you the full review when it launches!