Swordship is a futuristic lightning-fast dodge’em up which flips the script on the traditional arcade shooter. Turn both the tide of battle and enemies on themselves by dodging, weaving and diving your way through an onslaught of enemies hell-bent on tearing your Swordship apart.

Genuinely Novel And Fun

Swordship feels like playing an old Arcade Shoot ’Em Up but where you turn your enemies into weapons. It’s like if you took a comedy sketch where everyone was accidentally hurting one another but you were composer getting them to do it – and you were hyped on cocaine while doing it.

Playing the Game

The game spins the camera around but the enemies still come from the top: usually. Unlike the old games where you found power ups by killing enemies, you unlock them Rougelike style after you beat a level. You can get some very useful power ups; my favorite so far is the slomo when grabbing a crate only because I have had not so great luck with the blocking spawns power up. The enemies are well designed and easy to tell apart. The attacks are varied as you progress; I also like that after you unlock groups of enemies you can see them randomly. That helps keep the variabiliy of the game going run after run.

And, That Tune.

The music in this game is really wonderful. I wont even pretend that I don’t keep listening to it on the trailer every time I come to the page. It really nicely keeps the mood of the game but does not distract you from the game while you’re playing it.

.. But That Price?

Yeah, the price tag feels a little expensive for the game but so long as they don’t abandon it then I think they have a lot of room to grow into. Some different music, some different level gimmicks and some more enemy variability and it will be fine. They could even add some novel ships beyond the sword ship for all we know.

All in all I definitely recommend.