Drifting Lands is a horizontal shoot-em-up game being developed by French indie game studio Alkemi. According to its creators, it combines traditional elements of the shmup genre with those inspired by loot-base action-RPGs – a sort of mixture between R-Type and Diablo.
The game is still in alpha state but a playable demo can be downloaded from Steam. In this version, the player has access to seven ships (the player starts with three and the other four are their stronger counterparts), a not insignificant number of skills for each of them and four different stages to play through (each of them can beaten on one of 50 different difficulty levels). Unfortunately, the loot system is yet to be implemented.
Drifting Lands is a euroshmup (a computer-style game, as opposed to an arcade-style one) in which, between the levels, player can spend money earned by killing enemies to buy different ships, upgrade the already owned ones, buy new skills and improve the ship’s stats (there are three of them: one for health, one for firepower and one for skills).
It’s not a game where you die after one hit – you have regenerating shields and if they’re destroyed, there’s still the ship’s hull – the system is very similar to that of Tyrian. Hopefully, the game will also borrow Tyrian’s strict progression from stage to stage once the story mode is completed, as being able to endlessly repeat the levels you’ve already beaten to earn money for upgrades can turn a potentially fun euroshmup into a boring grind.
Fortunately, unlike in many other (especially browser-based) indie shooters, you don’t keep money if you fail the level – unless you retreat manually which requires you to survive a countdown – and if you don’t have an automatic retreat skill equipped, you also lose your ship and have to buy a new one.
There are three types of ships currently playable in Drifting Lands: a slow, heavily armored Sentinel which fires spreading pellets, a fast Interceptor with low-health and a powerful laser (supposedly a choice for those who like bullet hell games but its speed makes weaving through more complex patterns harder than in Cave-style games), and a jack-of-all-trades Marauder with a machinegun which spreads out its bullets a bit, but not too widely.
For a not insignificant sum of in-game money, the players can buy their stronger versions (the Marauder has two of them, both more a bit specialized than the original ship – one with more health and one with a bit more firepower).
The four levels playable in Drifting Lands are Clear Skies, Storm Range, Desert Shard and Night Chase – interestingly enough, while the first three don’t end with a boss fight, the latter has three of them, with each boss looking the same but having completely different attack patterns.
Playing those stages on higher difficulties doesn’t seem to change the enemies that appear in them but makes their attacks more damaging, gives them more health and, most importantly, gives them much harder attack patterns (and, at some point, ‘death bullters’ that fire after you destroy them).
The level designs are pretty good, although it’s a shame that unlike in many classic horizontal shooters (e.g. Gradius or R-Type) there are no environmental hazards in Drifting Lands.
Scoring in Drifting Lands is a system based on grazing mechanics – there’s a focus multiplier which increases when you fly close to enemy attacks but decreases if you take damage. It’s not the most original idea (it was used in Touhou Project, Psyvariar and the Castle of Shikigami games) but as always it creates a natural risk-reward system.
What is actually original is the introduction of special types of enemies which require the player to change his current strategy – so far, the game has magnetized enemies which pull your ship towards them, as well as forcefield generators which create an area of effect around them in which the enemies (other than the generators themselves) cannot be harmed.
Drifting Lands is a good looking game, with a pretty cool art style that combines 2D parallax scrolling background with 3D models used for player and enemy ships. The game seems to take some influence from Ikaruga as the enemies often fly from foreground or background before attacking.
The game also has some fun with light and weather effects which, combined with the onslaught of enemies from all direction (don’t worry, it’s always telegraphed by either the aforementioned background and foreground animations or simply through flashing warning signs before the enemies come from places they usually don’t come from). There’s also energetic, fast-paced music, all of which create a really fun, chaotic experience that is rarely seen in the more deliberately paced computer-style shooters.
Drifting Lands is a game with a lot of potential. While right now there’s not enough content to pass judgments on its overall quality, what is already there is so far very enjoyable. Let’s hope the finished game manages to live up to expectations.
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