Don’t Shoot Yourself!

Developer: Silverware Games, Inc.| Publisher: Silverware Games, Inc. | Release Date: 2015 | Genre: Indie / Action / Strategy | Website: Official Website | Format: Digital Download

Unlike most shooters, Don’t Shoot Yourself doesn’t pit you against some invading alien armada. As the game’s name suggests, the only danger you have to worry about is yourself. This is because your tiny spaceship is imprisoned in a variety of different-shaped arenas from which you must escape. Your ship is equipped with a single bullet that can shatter the walls of your prison, but you must fire the preceding 100 bullets first in order to do so. This means that you must simply stay alive long enough for your ship to fire the magical bullet, but obviously, this is easier said than done.

Although you must dodge and weave through numerous bullets to survive, Don’t Shoot Yourself is almost more of a puzzle title than a shooter. Your ship automatically fires bullets behind it as you move, which means you have to consider each arena’s layout to make things easier for yourself. This is because the irregularly shaped walls make the ricocheting of the bullets unpredictable and because bullets react differently to particular walls. Some walls cause bullets to pick up velocity as they ricochet back, while others act as warp gates that teleport the bullets to a different part of the arena. Even worse are the ones that turn the bullets invisible or convert them into homing missiles! Most of the levels are rather small, too, or have moving elements, which means things get very crowded very quickly.

It is a straightforward concept but quite addictive, and with more than 50 levels, there are plenty of challenges. The game also features three difficulty settings, Normal, Hard, and Zen, with the latter in particular requiring exceptional reflexes to survive. Completing a level on Normal nets you a single lotus flower, while Hard is worth two lotus flowers and Zen a whopping five. The lotus flowers are required to unlock the boss battles, which you have to complete in order to unlock the next tier of levels. The game can get quite tricky at times, but it doesn’t take very long to complete on Normal. The higher difficulty settings offer a much bigger challenge, though.

Visually, the game keeps everything very simple, with backgrounds that consist of colorful patterns and white lines representing your ship, bullets, and walls. This means that even when things get chaotic, keeping track of your ship is not too tricky, which is essential for later levels. The audio is also decent, and while not exactly memorable, the tunes at least never become annoying. Although Don’t Shoot Yourself can be played with a controller, we preferred the mouse as it allowed us to thread through the bullets with greater precision. The only problem with the mouse controls is that your ship follows the cursor, so if you go through a warp gate, the ship teleports away from the cursor and then immediately tries to get back to it, which can cause confusion. Don’t think that you can simply remain stationary to avoid bullets either as doing so will cause your bullets to recharge!

Don’t Shoot Yourself is a lot of fun when played in short bursts, and although initially a mobile title, it looks pretty good on a high-resolution monitor. The inclusion of full controller support, Steam Workshop support, and Steam Leaderboards also more than justifies the low asking price. This is one of those games with a simple, easy-to-grasp concept but which offers a nice challenge. You can simply jump in and have fun without lengthy tutorials or anything getting in the way of the action. Since the original review was published, the game has received an overhaul, which added new background art for each level based on ancient wisdom and mystics from around the world. The game now also features new spiritual quotes called Koans hidden on special levels, and overall, the latest version is more consistent with the developer’s original vision.