This is the two hundred thirty-fifth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred thirty-fifth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is yearning for the olden days of Flash games. It’s Flashover MegaSector, by Happy Frog Games (creators of Scratching That Itch entry #116, Infiniboss), and its tagline in the bundle reads:

Fast-paced bullet hell shoot ’em up where stages change based on objective…

Sometimes you gotta change the stage.

As the tagline says, Flashover MegaSector is a shoot ’em up, a genre that has appeared several times in Scratching That Itch before. When writing about the first to appear, Zenodyne R, I wrote a brief history of the genre, so head there if you want some background. Other notable shoot ’em ups that have graced Scratching That Itch include Risk System, which made my list of highlights from year two, and Rym 9000, which was my favorite pick from year five. But some simpler shoot ’em ups have appeared as well, like HellStar Squadron, Falling Skies, or even Purple Chicken Spaceman. Some of those were a bit too simple to truly enjoy, and when I saw the art style for Flashover MegaSector — described by Happy Frog Games as a callback to the browser games of yore — I feared it would fall into that camp. I’m pleased to report that although it is short and fairly simple, Flashover MegaSector is actually quite well made and fun to play.

There’s a story about a space fighter taking on some pirates, but that’s not really reflected by what’s on the screen. The player controls a triangle, which blasts lasers at other shapes: squares, hexagons, and stars. The default background is simply white with grid lines on it, although there’s also a “fancy” background setting in the options which swaps it for a dark purple background with lighter swirly purple lines on it. Unfortunately, the fancy background makes it harder to see enemies and incoming fire, so I stuck with the eye-searing white background. This is important because Flashover MegaSector belongs to the “bullet hell” subgenre of shoot ’em ups, meaning the focus is on dodging complicated patterns of purple energy orbs as they fill the screen.

Sometimes these orbs are fired by the enemy shapes, or by the massive geometric bosses. Other times, strings of orbs simply enter the screen or spiral out of nothingness. Sometimes, the enemy shapes themselves act like bullets, flying onto the screen at high speed. Regardless, I was always focused on dodging the onslaught, deftly maneuvering my triangular ship (which, as in most bullet hell shoot ’em ups, is only damaged if the conveniently marked pixel at its center impacts with a projectile or enemy) around the screen, threading a path between deadly obstacles. Flashover MegaSector keeps this pure. There are no powerups to grab, no screen-clearing bombs or other special abilities. My own ship’s weapons were an afterthought; they do not affect movement at all, so there was never a reason to take my finger off of the fire button while I concentrated on staying alive.

Except there is, actually, a reason to stop shooting sometimes. There are optional objectives in each stage that can affect the next one, objectives like “don’t destroy any hexagons” or “defeat exactly 50 stars”. I was just trying to survive, so I wasn’t really paying attention to these objectives, but they offer extra challenges for players who have completed the game already. Which is welcome, because the game’s five stages are short and easily finished in a single play session. Especially because Flashover MegaSector allows players to decide how many extra lives they want, from zero to infinite (“99” is treated as infinite), and lives are restored at each new stage. I set the extra lives to 10 and that was about right for getting through the game on my first attempt. Players looking for more challenge can lower that number, or simply try to avoid dying at all, since it incurs a large score penalty.

I’m not sure what else dictates high scores, honestly. There are no complicated kill streaks or medaling here, so it’s probably just about avoiding death and making sure to destroy as many enemy shapes as possible. Personally, I’d be more enticed by the special objectives that promise altered — or even fully alternate — stages. There are hints that this will fill in some more story, but I suspect the real draw will be the extra layer of focus required to selectively destroy enemies to meet specific quotas. And the reward is more stages to play, which is great.

I didn’t actually go after those objectives, however, because it seemed like Flashover MegaSector was running out of ideas even in its regular stages. For example, the first boss spawned some spiked walls that forced me to maneuver to the very top or very bottom of the screen, even as I dodged its regular bullets. Later bosses pulled the same trick, just with more complicated patterns. Coupled with the recurring enemy shapes, this makes the stages blur together a bit, with little to differentiate them. It felt more like the entire game was a single stage, building up the same series of obstacles over time. Would alternate versions of these stages be different enough to appeal? Perhaps. I was impressed by one mid-game boss that was actually two huge ships, one in front and one behind, firing on each other while I was caught in the middle. My own weapons did nothing, so I simply had to stay alive while they destroyed each other. If there are more ideas like that in store in the alternate stages, they’d be worth seeing.

If you fancy a simple, but still engaging shoot ’em up, you could do worse than Flashover Megasector. If you missed it in the bundle, it’s sold for a minimum price of $1, and some recent posts on the itch.io page suggest a future update is coming with a nicer background for the stages and better indicators for the optional objectives. There’s also a free demo available if you want to try it before shelling out a dollar.

That’s 235 down, and only 1506 to go!