What might be the surprise “hidden gem" of this week’s batch of new releases is a game called Futuridium EP from developer MixedBag, who you might remember is working on a very neat adventure game called Forma.8 which we looked at during E3 last year. In the meantime though, they’ve released Futuridium, and it’s a wild ride so far.
Futuridium is a behind-the-ship style space shooter, similar to something like StarFox. Each “level" is actually a larger spaceship where your goal is to blast away all the blue cubes you see, which will reveal a white core cube. Destroying the core cube completes the level, and the whole thing has a sort of “Death Star trench run" feel to it.
The game comes with 13 different levels, or ships rather, and each one needs to be played through in succession old-school arcade style during the main campaign. Once you’ve beaten a level you can go back and play it by itself for practice, but the leaderboard only tracks straight playthroughs of the full campaign.
One other thing about Futuridium that really jumps out at me is its controls. A simple, invisible, “touch anywhere" control stick is used for ship movement, there’s a dedicated fire button for blasting away cubes, and touching anywhere else on the screen will flip your ship around 180 degrees, which is essential as there’s much back-and-forth going on as you take out all the different cubes spread across a level in order to reveal the core cube.
Also worth noting is the really slick visual style of Futuridium, as well as its excellent assortment of music (it’s not all dubstep, FYI). It feels like a really cohesive audio/visual package, and I’m very pleasantly surprised with just how much fun and how challenging it is. If your interest is piqued then throw Futuridium on your TouchArcade (Free) Watch List and check out our forums for some more impressions. Or, if you’re impatient, check out the free Mac/PC version from the official Futuridium website in the interim.
International App Store Link: Futuridium EP, $1.99 (Universal)
