The primary reason I had to play The Day We Fought Space was cause of the genre. I didn’t book much time with SHMUPs at PAX West 2019, and this was the first one I got to play. And while I’m not amazing at the genre, I do love them. What most surprised me about The Day We Fought Space was that the platform. It’s only going to be playable on mobile, specifically iOS. And while that may have concerned me had I known it, turns out I didn’t have much to worry about.
Since The Day We Fought Space is on mobile, it stands to reason it has touch controls. But I’ve never, ever played a SHMUP with that sort of framework. Shockingly, it works pretty well. You drag your ship with one finger, and use your other hand to direct your shots and pinch foes to target them. That last part wasn’t super effective for me, but I was able to aim without issue. What’s really cool about this game is it’s a rogue SHMUP with a shit ton of ships to pick from.
In my demo, I had a ship that used a bouncing rubber ball sort of missile as well as machine gun fire. Overall, the game controlled pretty well, though it was easy to get overwhelmed by all the things happening at once. That said, I mostly think the control scheme works fine, though a part of me hopes this makes its way to consoles with more traditional controls. But if you like the SHMUP genre and want something totally different and interesting, you should check out The Day We Fought Space. It’s set to launch in 2020, so you won’t have all that much longer to wait. Or if you’re not convinced, just check out the trailer below!
