The Slunchies: a simple, addictive and free game for Windows 8

featured in Spain
Top #5 in shooter games

Available free in the windows store

The Slunchies is a good example of quality games and applications that are slowly coming up to the Windows Store. It seems that finally, Windows 8 is growing up his market share and the platform is increasingly gaining interest from developers and studios focused on video games.

The game  is a small one, but funny, entertaining and addictive. The mechanics of the game is quite simple: Just shoot at the little creatures (The Slunchies) that appear on both sides of the screen (very similar to the classic skeet shooting game Hyper Sports) to “heal” as many as you can in the least possible time. What makes this game fun to play is trying not to miss any shot in order to achieve the multipliers that largely increase your score. At the beginning it is rather easy to keep up with the cadency of appearance of creatures, but as new waves of Slunchies come, it turns into a fascinating craziness. You can shoot at mutant and other different kinds of creatures that give you additional play time and boost your score.

The graphics

The atmosphere and the graphics are some of the strongest assets of the game. The introductory story to the game is a good example of this:

“The Slunchies were small lovely animals, but … there was a girl … something was very wrong … and … however not everything is lost, I developed an antidote, shoot it with your gun and heal as many Slunchies as you can … Your future is in your hands” Yours, Walton.

Ilitia Games have develop a funny story for a game as simple as this. In fact, if there is something that distinguishes all great little games such as Angry birds, Candy Crush and Tiny wings is the little stories that gives life to them. In The Slunchies we find a mad scientist in love, his creations and his attempt to amend the mistake he made.

But every good atmosphere has to have good graphics to really catch the attention of the player. And certainly The Slunchies doesn’t fall short. With an aesthetic and colorful cartoon style, the game has a perfect visual finished, both in the general elements of the game as in each individual screen and button.

Mechanics

The mechanics of the game are very simple: Shoot at the Slunchies just when they pass over one of crooshair. Because this game is for both RT and Windows 8 Pro, it offers the possibility to play with the keyboard, the mouse or the buttons on the screen in touch-enabled devices.

There are slight differences in the playability of the game when using the touch buttons, or when playing with the keyboard or mouse. The response time in each case seems slightly different and the response to successive shots, too.It is easier to start playing with the keyboard as well as repeatedly shooting at Taunty (the orange bug), however when things gets hard and the waves of creatures increase, it is easier to play with the touchscreen buttons. The differences are subtle but pro players will notice it.

Duration of the game

Each game only lasts 60 seconds but it can extend up indefinitely if you achieve time bonuses. On the other hand, the total game time is much longer if the player is able to reach all the achievements or wants to see his/her name at the top of the world ranking.

The achievements provide the opportunity to explore different flavors of the game. However, and this is one area for improvement, all of them are single-game achievements. Some players will miss progressive achievements, present in other games such as Temple Run, for example, that act as an incentive the player to play many times and to extend the time playing the game.

Conclusion

The Slunchies is an addictive and fun video game with gorgeous graphics, perfect for keeping in your PC to play in your short idle times. We can’t ask for much more in a free game.

Available free in the windows store