There have been many games inspired by Andrew Braybrook’s 1986 cult-classic horizontal shoot ’em up Uridium, which originated on the Commodore 64 and was ported to most of the popular ’80s home computers of the time as well as to the NES as a strange movie tie-in with The Last Starfighter. Chances are you’ve played or at least seen the game in some form over the years. In the mobile world, two titles come to mind as being especially inspired by Uridium. There was the fully 3D polygonal take Futuridium EP (I mean, it’s right there in the title) that was incredibly awesome but is sadly no longer on the App Store, and there’s the similarly awesome Starseed: Origin ($2.99) which was truer to Uridium in looks but played around with the concept a bit. That one is still on the App Store but hasn’t been updated in ages.

Then there’s Hyper Sentinel ($1.99), a game that looked to stay truest to the original Uridium’s concepts but updating them in a number of ways that positioned it as a true candidate for being an official spiritual successor. In fact, Hyper Sentinel developer Four5Six Pixel partnered up with Huey Games to help finish off and publish the game, and Huey is a direct descendant of Hewson Consultants who published the original Uridium (and countless other classic indie computer games in the ’80s) back in 1986. This is as full circle as a story can get, and it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Anyway, Hyper Sentinel originally registered on our radar way back in September of 2015, though the project goes back to at least the previous July. We loved the look of it then and even more after a new trailer hit a couple of months later. Through the end of 2015 and into 2016 faithful beta testers helped Four5Six whip Hyper Sentinel into shape, and it always seemed like its iOS release was right around the corner.

It was around the middle of 2016 that Four5Six linked up with Andrew Hewson of Huey Games and decided to bring Hyper Sentinel to more platforms beyond mobile. Following a first failed Kickstarter, and then a second more successful Kickstarter, Hyper Sentinel finally became a reality when it launched simultaneously on Steam, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch this past May. But wait, what about mobile!? Well it appears that Hyper Sentinel has stealthily released on iOS late last week, and at the extremely low price of $1.99. I’ve only spent just a few minutes with it so far, but this is undoubtedly a true spiritual successor to Uridium. The controls work well and while the “ship-flipping" mechanic takes a bit to get used to, once you do this turns into a real gem of a game. Challenging, strategic, and mind-blowingly chaotic.

Besides enjoying the game itself and being happy seeing a game announced so long ago actually materialize, I just love the story behind Hyper Sentinel. Andrew Hewson was like the godfather of indie game publishing in the ’80s, and made the dreams of bedroom hobbyist developers come true decades before the App Store came along and did similar. Now Andrew and his son Rob are carrying on that legacy with Huey Games, and it just seems fitting that one of their most popular published titles more than 30 years ago is getting such a fantastic homage in the form of Hyper Sentinel. If you ever wanted to play Uridium cranked up to 11, that’s what this feels like to me, and it’s glorious. Beyond being so cheap on iOS, Hyper Sentinel is also currently on sale on consoles so no matter which platform you check it out on you’ll be in for a treat.