Releasing on the 3rd August, Cell #31 is an intense, hardcore twin-stick shooter that uses frantic attack patterns to not only overwhelm the player but also look aesthetically pleasing and hypnotic, too. It is the player against the local leaderboard to challenge for the highest score, but it comes from skill and skill alone, as the tools at your disposal are minimal.
All you can do as a player in Cell #31 is move and shoot. The game takes place in a single square arena that stretches out to about 1.5 TV screens in size, and you need to survive as long as possible. Get hit three times, and it’s game over. Where Cell #31 differs from most twin-stick shooters is that there are two categories of enemies to dodge at any one time. Whilst there will be all kinds of geometric cellular shapes chasing you around the screen and either charging or shooting at you, they are only part of the problem. At all times, purple cells will fade into the playing arena, forming various psychedelic patterns as they do. If you are touching them by the time they are fully formed, you’ll die. You cannot kill these purple cells, which will appear in both circular and bar shapes, so avoiding them is the only option. I’m reminded of the classic dodge-em-up style games, such as Just Shapes and Beat, but instead of being a pure dodge-em-up, we’ve got to blast our way to freedom at the same time.
The two categories of enemies will spawn from small attack patterns from the very first second of gameplay at an intense, visceral speed. This game has no chill whatsoever. Learning the patterns of the purple cells is crucial to survival, because you’ll have no dodge or boost abilities to get out of their way. They move faster than you, so player placement is critical to your longevity. A score multiplier racks up points for killing other types of enemies, and that’s where the big points are made. The better and longer a combo you can create, the more points per second you’ll score. As everything moves so quickly, I did run into a clever strategy that I hope is intentional by design. As purple cells fly across the screen, they’ll often interact with other enemy types and crash into them. That can in turn create little corridors of safety and solitude as you try to zig-zag through what would have been very tight gaps if you’d already killed everything. This led me to not always kill all the enemies in each attack pattern, because sometimes keeping a few around would be beneficial if you found yourself exposed and unable to outrun the next purple cell swarm. With the whole game’s theme being cell division, it makes for an on-point design feature.
My main critiques of Cell #31 come from its single game mode, local-only leaderboard, and occasional fuzzy collision detection with purple cells as they appear on screen. I cannot emphasise enough how much of an intense challenge Cell #31 is. It goes hard from the first second and refuses to let up until you tap out. If you enjoy a challenge, this is a pure skill challenge. If you get frustrated and angry about getting good easily… give something else a whirl!
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