Drone Invaders Review

Drone InvadersDrone Invaders by one-man indie developer Bigosaur isn’t a particularly stand-out game. That’s not at all to say it isn’t good though. Drone Invaders works, and works well, and with all the running around for the holidays I’ve been doing lately, it fills in those small pockets of free time perfectly.

Drone Invaders is a shoot ‘em up in the same vein as the original Space Invaders except with a small twist–there’s no ship on-screen. Instead, the game is over when at least one drone reaches the bottom of the screen. It’s a simple change, but it makes the game work effectively on mobile devices and frees up space that would otherwise be occupied by way too many fingers. The only really obtrusive element on display is the ammunition and subsequently the reload button which sometimes obscure incoming drones, making them difficult to parse and hit.

Done for a LudumDare challenge and completed in only 23 days, Drone Invaders has a nice level of polish. The music is catchy and the visuals are decent. The drones are actually pretty cute, especially the bosses. Eventually the player will spot the patterns in drone arrangements, but they never feel monotonous.

Other than that, Drone Invaders has all the regular trappings of a free mobile game. There are missions, daily challenges with bonuses for completing them all in a row, weekly hunts, upgrades that use in-game currency, and real money microtransactions. The bonus in-game content is actually fun to try and beat. The microtransactions luckily remain non-invasive and, if the player so chooses to spend money for in-game coins, actually provide a good enough amount to justify the purchase.

If you’re looking for a free shmup to play every so often, try out Drone Invaders. It’s completely free on the Google Play Store. You can also find out more about the game on the developer’s website.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

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Author:daikaijuz

Billie Wrex is a big sci-fi nerd that shows his love of games through criticism. Besides The Indie Mine, his writing can also be read at his personal games blog, http://grissomspacesuit.wordpress.com. He can be followed on Twitter at @DAIKAIJUZ

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