A week ago, while I was pontificating on the nuances of Arco, I expressed my desire to play more bullet hell games with time-freeze mechanics, the better to savor the intricacies of their bullet patterns. Here’s Moon Watch, a pixel-art shooter in the style of Vampire Survivors where you have a watch that freezes time when you stand still. Caught in that frozen moment, you’re free to laugh at the twisted faces of the living dead while you idly select and aim garlic grenades, stake launchers, and bouncing ice comets.
At least until you run out of energy for garlic grenades, stake launchers, and jumping ice comets. In a sadistic twist on the premise—like offering a child a spoonful of pudding, only to have it replaced with a spoonful of disgusting, nutritious vegetables—weapon energy must be restored through movement. So when you’re not laughing in the face of the living dead, you’ll be carefully flying around them and avoiding their shrapnel, with one eye glued to the energy tanks in the lower left corner.
Why is Moon Watch “Vampire Survivors-ish” and not “Vampire Survivors-like”? Well, firstly, because many of the abilities must be manually aimed and fired with a mouse. And secondly, because the game is made up of discrete levels or arenas scattered throughout the roguelite campaign path. Each arena requires you to endure for a set amount of time, rather than being a continuous, growing spiral of waves of enemies and unlockable items – a bit like Into The Breach, I guess.
Vampire swarms aside, the similarities to Vampire Survivors extend to the three unlocks you get after leveling up. It’s the usual mix of passive buffs and up-to-date handheld weapons. You can get turrets, a throwable zombie bait, and a teleport dash, for example. I’m sure you’ll find a way to combine those things.
What else is there to say? Well, the starting character is some warrior nun who looks like an ogre-like blonde with Hey Arnold!but she doesn’t seem all that ogre-like. When you beat a level, she does a victory spin, even as the other zombos gather around her position like pigeons staring down a dropped sandwich. I find that charmingly audacious. Plus, the creators of The Jaspel are the same broken, species-mistakable scientists who made Backpack Hero.
Find a demo of Moon Watch on Itch.io with a full release coming soon Couple at some point in the tactically deferred future.
