Putting serious effort into the 2D shooter genre as a player can like a deconstruction of the form – unearthing arcane mechanisms and dissecting scoring systems that lurk below the visuals very much a process of unpicking the work of game designers. In their most purebred form, unembellished by narrative acrobatics or any meaningful moments of downtime, 2D shooters present an experience where playing can feel something like direct interaction with the code itself –a dance with intersecting multipliers and numerical gauges played out as a flight through dangerous skies.
