If you are a fan of the retro look, you may want to check out the Windows Phone 8 game Space Squids. It is an endless, side scrolling space combat game with minimal controls and equally minimal graphics (which isn’t a bad thing) that is reminiscent of videos games of old.
Space Squids calls upon you to pilot your space craft, battling wave upon wave of enemy ships and bosses. While the game approaches things in a simplistic manner, Space Squids is a fun game to pass the time with and nifty addition to the Windows Phone gaming library.
Space Squids has simplistic graphics and an equally simple interface. The main menu has options to play the game, displays your best score and an option to rate the game in the Windows Phone Store. A music note sits in the lower right corner that acts as mute button. The goal of Space Squids is to fly your space ship across the screen for as far as you can. Along the way you get to battle alien space craft and bosses. Enemy space ships vary in speed and in the number of hits required to take them out.
The gaming screen with Space Squids has your gaming statistics spread across the top of the screen, which includes your score, level, number of missiles, number of lives and a pause button. Gaming controls run across the bottom of the screen that include your fire button, missile launch button and up/down directional arrows.
Game play is transparent. You move your ship up and down to avoid colliding with enemy ships and enemy weapons fire while firing your own weapon to destroy the enemy ships. As you progress through the game, you will encounter boss ships that a little more effort in destroying.
For the most part, game play was enjoyable with Space Squids and the pixelated graphics does have a certain amount of appeal. I did experience a few performance issues that locked the game up and required me to re-launch to the game to get things moving again. The game freezing did not occur often enough to drive you crazy but enough to be noticeable.
If you’re in the mood for a retro gaming experience or just looking for a casual game to help you pass the time Space Squids is well worth trying. Space Squids is a free game that is available for Windows Phone 8. You can find Space Squids here in the Windows Phone Store.
