Like exception, this is something else that kind of slipped the cracks.

So what is 黄昏酒場～Uwabami Breakers～? (the kanji says たそがれさかば, which means something like “twilight bar room” from looking at some places online about the game). It is yet another 弾幕 (danmaku) game, but this one is about a pub crawl, where your player goes from one bar to another without getting kicked out of the establishment by running out of time.

But enough of background stories for a shooting game – the important thing really is the whole challenge of these games. On that: this is not easy, but there is one thing that makes life easier. There are no lives; instead, you have a clock to race, and every time you die, the time gets moved up. So don’t die too much, or you will lose.

However, one of the most frustrating part about the game is that there are no continues. If you die (by running out of time by either not reaching the boss before the last order time or dying at the boss when it is already last order time, therefore kicking you out), then you will have to start again from the very beginning. Luckily, the game is only three stages, but still, it’s not an easy game.

Uwabami Breakers was made by a 同人 (doujin) circle known as 呑んべぇ会 (のんべぇかい), which roughly translates as “The Drinking Party”, again from various sources online. The group includes ZUN, who is part of (or the only member of) Team Shanghai Alice that makes the 東方 (Touhou) series. But basically, the game, and the circle, was conceived in a bar while drunk.

Kind of funny how some of the best ideas usually come from bars and drunkenness, like the CSSS Frosh Week theme for 2006.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Games, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.