Risk System Wants You to Fly INTO Bullet Hell, Not Away from It (Preview)

The challenge within shoot ’em ups (or shmups) is often avoiding a screen full of bullets. Risk System is a soon-to be-released title that challenges that conventional thought.

Developed by the two-man team of Newt Industries, Risk System began full development last year but was actually conceptualized years before production began. Fans and those interested can play the first two mission via the latest demo.

Shmups, generally speaking, have your tiny ship survive waves of enemies and avoid their accompanying fire in every stage. Now, RS changes that a bit, actually, with its risk system. For example, you can deal more damage to enemies by flying closer to them. Your ship’s bullets at that point deal additional damage compared to your standard fire.

Then there’s your super move, the Barrier Breaker. On the bottom-right of the screen, there’s a gauge for the powerful weapon. As you fly close to bullets, your gauge will charge, and once full, you can deploy a powerful screen-filling attack. It will destroy all enemies and deal a good bit of damage to bosses.

The beauty of the system is that you can continue to charge the gauge as long as you fly close to danger. So you are literally being rewarded for flying into danger. Not taking advantage of this is not recommended. I often found certain sequences of the demo were nearly impossible to clear without using the system.

Now I want to speak on the music featured in the demo. The developers chose to use music that’s more grandiose in scale. Rather than rock or pulse-pounding music often used in this genre, they chose particular scoring. This fits the game’s tone and its narrative of the lone pilot.

Another aspect of the game that’s very interesting (and welcomed!) is the cast. From the main character to enemies, the entire cast of characters is composed of women. Not many games, indie or otherwise, can claim that.

Risk System can be played on practically any desktop or laptop, which is great because a lot of indie titles ask you to have modern hardware to a certain degree.

The full title will feature six missions with multiple endings. It will also include a narrative that changes based on your stage performance and actions.

Currently, the dev team is shooting (not sorry) for a release  in April of this year.

Fans of indies and arcade shooters can expect more news about Risk System soon. Check out some gameplay footage from the demo below.