Walking the PAX floor is always a wonderful-yet-confusing experience for me. While great indie titles have no lines, PAX-goers queue around the block at booths big enough to obscure the sun for games they’ll be able to play in a month. One such title I was able to waddle up to and play almost immediately was They Bleed Pixels.
The video should give you a good idea of what the game has in store, but what doesn’t come through is TBP’s combo system. The levels are littered with dangerous terrain like spinning sawblades and spikes that the player can launch enemies into. Attacking builds combos and the more powerful it is, the further an enemy will fly causing them to be impaled or eviscerated. The player’s attacks are context-sensitive, meaning they’ll change depending on your spacial relation to the bad guys. Kicking up will propel an enemy into the air, and leaping next to them will slow down time letting you pull off some Matrix-y attacks.
Even though the game’s unfinished, it feels 100% polished and ready for release. Spooky Squid Games are in talks with a publisher, and They Bleed Pixels should be hitting unnamed digital services within the year. Set a reminder for it if you enjoy beautiful-yet-gory pixel art and fluid combat systems.
