Some older school mobile gamers may be familiar with the name Ernest Szoka aka RebelBinary by way of the 2014 release Only One (Free), a game based on a somewhat obscure 2001 box office flop starring Jet Li called The One. Specifically this scene where Li is fighting off hordes of bad guys atop a strange ziggurat-like structure. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Only One is one of my all-time favorite mobile games, and I could go on and on about why I love it, but that’s not why I’m here. Plus Only One is free, so if you haven’t tried it before, go do that. No I’m here to tell you about RebelBinary’s first new game since Only One all those years ago. This one’s called Vortexika, and as that name hints at, it’s a space shooter that takes place in a vortex. That means your movement is around the outer edge of that vortex, similar to the arcade classic Gyruss, as you avoid obstacles and blast at enemies as they approach you. You can see exactly what Vortexika is all about in the following trailer.

That trailer doesn’t tell the whole story though, as RebelBinary has shared additional details about the game in our forums. It’s billed as an endless game, but not TOO endless as there are 100 different levels to play through with checkpoint intervals every 10 levels. This is actually one of the more interesting parts of Vortexika as if you don’t make it at least 25% of the way through a level your previous progress will actually drop. That means you can’t just be flippant about each game you play, as if you’re careless you’ll never actually get anywhere. Also this is a one-hit-kill game, though there are armor pick-ups that’ll let you absorb an extra hit as well as weapon pick-ups to increase your firepower. There’s in-game coins to collect which you can put towards buying things like new skins, upgrades, weapon and armor boosts, and more. Given my love for Only One I’m definitely stoked to check out Vortexika, which is submitted to Apple already and should be launching any day now on both iOS and Android.