Games of the Abstract: Bot Vice (2016)

 

Developer: DYA Games

Publisher: DYA Games

One Player

Windows / Nintendo Switch

 

There are many retro influenced games for the Valve Steam era, "throwbacks" in modern gaming which is a cool thing, in how when once sprite animation was being dismissed with the rise of polygonal graphics in the mid-nineties, the form of games beforehand have had their revenge in the independent game developers. Truthfully however, I have also not necessarily been in the mood for them either, and a lot of this is not even their fault, more the unfortunate fact many old games, actual sprite games, are never re-released and are lost in a wave of games which nod to these missing titles. Whether they are good or not depend per game, and alongside appreciating their nostalgic aesthetics, Bot Vice, which can be linked back to shoot em up games like Cabal (1988), is a good one. A game acquired out of a whim during a sale, it won me over for its mix of a d distinct retro style and its gameplay, more so in mind to its tiny team of creators.

DYA Games, created by two brothers Alberto and Daniel Vílchez Carpio, are a tiny self funded developer influenced by pixel aesthetics, and Bot Vice was their second game published, which is a dodge 'n' gun game in premise, as you are stuck unable to move more than left to right on the screen, the enemies taking up the rest of the screen in the background, with only cover you can duck behind. Set within a futuristic city, former female police officer Erin Saver, who lost an arm in her last case, a raid gone wrong, is interrupted in her video game by a terrorist operation that has hijacked a tower, demanding everyone follow their instructions to avoid it blowing up. Having been provided a robotic arm to compensate for her injury, Erin becomes a sole gun woman against this, in a conspiracy involving animal humanoid robots, a gang called the Wildbots behind her police partner's death and the loss of her arm in the raid, and a potential android uprising. She is a one woman army, using improvised (and destroyable) barriers as the sole allies to protect her, avoiding being shot through by all the enemies as you shoot all of them instead. Your options also include the optional side roll, a true ally, significant as with only four hearts in a stage, you need to avoid a horde each stage including level specific bosses, the roll able to dodge all projectiles and hazards if hit right like ducking for cover. A little golden robot, when appearing and shot, provides lives and weapons - machine guns, spread guns and grenade launchers among the options - and you have a lock on mechanic to focus on specific mooks, rather than other games in this style where you could also control the target of the gun. You even have a melee attack for those too close and able to knock out some incoming ammo from the air.

Beyond this, one just has to survive the screen covering bullets. There is a plot, a conspiracy as talked of earlier, clearly indebted to the likes of the Mega Man franchise in enemy designs. Rushing through the hordes after you - from giant wasps whose laid eggs lead to smaller ones, to shield carrying snake men and flaming eagles - they force you on your toes in what is a very simplistic gameplay style which works fully. The sprite effects in a modern game shine as well, especially in mind how such a small number of people were behind this, so small the Steam release ends with an ask for good reviews to help promote DYA Games. Even the voice cast is just two people, one as the female lead, Elissa Park, one man in Omri Rose playing everyone else. That charm is to be found everywhere through this, and whilst there is an occasional ironic moment, usually comments grunts utter to one of the bosses referencing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the game even becomes more serious in drama, including a post credit epilogue imagining a sequel.

It offers the addictiveness to these classic games as timeless. Especially as between the main campaign, with achievements and full rankings to win, and a bonus series of harder levels, Bot Vice does have a lot to it. The energy to the production, full of vibrancy, is something I admire greatly, and coming from someone who laments the how many games are still not ported still, it is however a nice rebuttal to previous thoughts of mine that, with the retro throwback games, you do get games who take the best mind-view of the past games and make their own games. Considering this was the second game from DYA Games, Alberto and Daniel Vílchez Carpio really did well for themselves, continuing on their own path to the likes of Viviette (2018) and Evil Tonight (2021), horror games (the former adventure and the later action) in this pixel art aesthetic. After playing Bot Vice, I have come to these developers with great interest in their entire catalogue.