DUO

Duo is a simple arcade style game that's oddly addictive and enchanting beneath the surface of its basic visuals and stripped down gameplay mechanics. But Duo is an interesting example of indie games done right well before the explosion of successes like Braid and Super Meat Boy allowed practically anyone to create, publish, and market their own games. While you probably haven't heard of developer Binary Zoo, they've been in existence for over a decade, and they consist of a single developer toiling away to create simple if meticulously created video games for the masses. Each game produced by Binary Zoo combines a clear love for the simple mechanics of early arcade video games with an affectionate but thoughtful art style that builds off but advances the simplistic sprites that once defined gaming so readily.

In Binary Zoo's pantheon of early arcade homages, Duo stands out as one of the most unique. At a glance, the graphics might not stick out as all that different from any arcade shooter of the 1980s, but a closer look will reveal a design that's as rich as it is nostalgic. The screen resembles some sort of forgotten game screen in the style of something like a handheld Tiger or the screens inserted into the old Coleco Vision, but the graphical content is something that those old machines could never capture. While the game exclusively makes use of simple shapes, their bright and vibrant colors create an almost psychedelic landscape that's delightfully abstract and brings to mind popular shooters like those in the Rez series. When enemy targets and power ups start bouncing around the screen wildly, it's both stunning and somewhat alarming, forcing players to work hard to stay alive and beat their high score.

In terms of gameplay, Duo will seem oddly familiar on the surface; but once you start digging into the game, you'll realize how truly distinct it is. The inspiration here is the shmup, a colloquial term for shoot 'em up. Classically, these are difficult games that were designed to eat up all the coins of players at the arcades, asking you to balance both your sense of momentum and your accuracy with a gun to make it through increasingly dense and complex obstacle courses. In terms of difficulty, Duo is no different. The seemingly simple shapes become increasingly complex as you proceed further into the game, and high level players will learn to develop both a mastery of the basic systems and a strong sense of muscle memory. While the controls are basic, there are a number of different modes here to help flesh out the experience. Four different difficulty settings are available so you can scale the game to match your needs, and a time attack mode is also included.