Desperate Times

The videogame to bring you a gun that shoots a sword that shoots hammers that explode into lightning.

DESPERATE TIMES is a spectacular shmup in which when you run out of ammo, you transform into another ship. The enemies are plentiful, the weapons absurd. Blast and dodge your way through five levels of challenging waves, each wave being hand-crafted but chosen at random. You don't know what's coming next but you know it'll be good. Desperate Times is not a game that is easy in the least. Even though you can and probably will receive apocalyptic weapons, you will still have to pay attention and use great skill in order to win.

41 base weapons are available at the time of writing. But there's more: Each weapon can be received with any number of weapon mods. Instead of a Hypercannon, you could get a Giant Hypercannon, a Triple Hypercannon or even something along the lines of a Giant Triple Penetrating Explosive Hyper Hypercannon! With that taken into account, the number of available weapons is over 2,000!

Every adversary in every wave is tweaked to make the wave present a unique challenge, or serve some specific purpose. Some enemies will appear shielded, some will shoot far more aggressively than usual, some will move in an elaborate dance around the screen before buggering off back to wherever they came from. Which wave you'll see next is random, and so the game is replayable.

What are you doing in this game? You're destroying things. Literally thousands of enemy ships will attack you. Annihilate a bunch of them and pass through without perishing and you will be allowed to fight The Boss. Upon the timely demise of the boss at your hands, you'll progress to the next level. Complete five levels and you win. Takes about fifteen minutes if you happen to complete the entire game. About 0% of rounds end in victory.