Buy Luftrausers

So addicting that the developers didn't even bother to put an "Exit Game" button in it.

A fallacious argument regarding arcade games is that they're designed solely to take your money. If anything, arcade games make you value your money. Think about it, your life is represented by a mere quarter. With practice that quarter could take you anywhere you want to go. For most of us nowadays, the only exposure to arcade games is through the occasional port or MAME. We've lost sight of how much a quarter is worth.

What a lot of arcade-style games get wrong is that they have too much content. They have a lot of fluff like epic intros, backstories, dozens of stages, freakin' level-ups. I don't play an arcade game for all that filth, I want a good challenge, I want the action to start seconds after I begin. Luftrausers understands what makes an arcade game work, and it's fantastic.

So uh...there's a war or something, you're a pilot, and oh who cares? You're either very skilled or exceptionally lucky to survive five minutes of this hell. The goal is to fly around, shoot down enemy fighters, destroy their boats, wreck their aces, sink their battleships, obliterate their subs, and probably wipe out their airships. One element of a good arcade game is that you can grasp its mechanics and controls in seconds. The enemy numbers are overwhelming but dodging and returning fire is seamless and impeccably designed. Your goals are simply to improve hi-score, complete various missions, and unlock parts.

Whoa back up, unlock parts? What is this? It's actually a very clever system. The parts in this game aren't just +1 to armor or +3 to fire-power. They change up the player's entire style and strategy. There are a multitude of weapon, body, and engine combinations. Finding the one that suits you is all part of the fun. For example, having a propellor equipped allows the player's ship to not take damage underwater. When the heat becomes a little too much, it's possible to duck into the sea for a quick breather. Couple this with the laser cannon and enemies can be destroyed while firing from underwater. Every combination leads to various changes in how every game is played, and with each attempt lasting minutes at the most, there's a lot of ideas to play around with.

What makes this such a smartly-designed game is that it does a lot with very little. There are maybe 7 or 8 enemy-types in the entire game, but they're used just right to make every game feel fresh. Changing the parts of your ship or focusing on different objectives can also make every attempt feel different from the last. I've gotten more than a couple hours out of this tiny game precisely because it knows what works and runs with it.

Definitely pick up Luftrausers if you haven't already. If you're the bundle-purchasing type it has to be in your library already. If not...well...oops? Grab it during the next sale, or buy it right now. Just play this game next chance you get, it's definitely worth it.

Fast Paced Modded Out Plane Airborne Warfare

REASONS TO OWN:

1. Morphing Soundtrack That Changes Depending On How You Pimp Your Plane

2. Delicious Unlockable Plane Modifications

3. Best End Game Mode

4. Easy To Pick Up

5. Hard To Put Down

Overall Rating 10/10

It's a fun game, tight controls and fantastic music. And so much of it too!
The thing is, it's really short. Like, really really short. I unlocked all plane pieces (save for 3) within 45 minutes. The 3 pieces I didn't unlock I assume you gain from destroying a Blimp, a rare and difficult enemy. Upon further research, it appears that Blimps appear randomly after a fairly easy prerequisite is reached. Some players report finding it within their first hour, some after 5. It seems like some kind of artificial lengthening to me.

If this game is %50 or more, go for I guess. Full price is a bit much right now.

You will play this game until your eyes bleed, and you will like it.

The only reason why i gave this game a chance - Devolver Digital

Luftrausers is a Bullethell with great handling, music that totally fits the game.
Less than 256 colours but a lot more fun than some games with 65536.
If you enjoy shmups like Really Big Sky a.s.o. Luftrausers should get a cosy place in your library.

Thanks to Devolver Digital for publishing another great title!

This is a brilliant little arcade style game. Incidentaly I picked this up in a Humble Bundle, but already before I start this review I'd say that it is definitly worth full price!
Luftrausers is an oldschool arcade style game, with focus on racking up as many points as possible, while sustaining a multiplier. To do this you gun down hundreds of planes, ships, and various modifications and bosstypes of these.
The game does however feature some progression, in that you will be offered various jobs to complete, and by doing that you will progressively unlock parts to your plane, which comes with more jobs to do. There is also colourschemes to unlock, since the artstyle is uses a simple 4-5 colour pallette.
The unlockable parts gives a whole lot of vararity, and there's a bunch of different playstyles, depending on how you combine your plane. Personally I'm a big fan of the laser+melee body+booster engine combo.
Gameplay continues to be fun, and even after you have completed all jobs and unlocked all parts, there is more to do, a hardcore mode will unlock, which is really hardcore. You will basically die within seconds, and this mode comes with additional jobs to do.
Luftrausers is ultmatively a bunch of fun, with flying mechanics that feel really awesome, and gamplay that keeps on giving. It does however run in some wierd aspect ratio (most likely 4:3) and there is no way to make it wide screen as far as I have seen, but this doesn't really detract from the game in any way.

I would definitly reccomend this game if you are into arcade style games with scores and multipliers. Or if you just want to waste some time shooting thing out of a brown sky.
Go get it!

This is a review for the Linux version, running Ubuntu 14.10. Runs perfectly on linux, only minor issue is lack of an exit button.

I was hesitant to pick this game up, due to the artstyle that seemed lazy in the screenshots and the general simplicity of bullet hell games. I was expecting this to be a cheap "So retro" game. However, when it went on sale and I noticed it was published by Devolver Digital (who have yet to back a stray horse) I decided to give it a go. I'm glad I did and I would recommend this game at full price.

This game reminds me of old arcade classic Aerial Dogfight, except with everything turned to the max. You begin with only the most basic machine gun and engine, then when you die you've discovered that you have a new engine that lets you move twice as fast at the cost of turning speed, a few more deaths later you're erupting out of the ocean and obliterating everything with a laser strapped to a chassis which is a nuclear bomb.

The game offers a lot of upgrade potential, it's surprisingly balanced. There's no combination which felt leagues better than the rest, Although your basic machinegun, chassis and engine feel outdated by the end, nothing you have earned will feel pointless.

The constant flow of gameplay challenges associated with each weapon encourages you to diversify your tactics. This prevents the fact that the game only offers one level and one mode from becoming tedious. One downside of these challenges is that the curve on them is a little bit off. The final challenges are magnitudes more difficuklt than the ones that came before it, and something such as defeating a submarine at MAX combo feels far more luck based than it does skill based.

The only real downside I could say against this game is that once you've completed all the challenges, there's not much to do but try for the high-score. That's not even a problem either with a relatively short round time and tight polished gameplay. I can see myself coming back to this many times in the future.

This game is very fun with polished controls and a great visual style. I enjoyed it for the first two hours immensely but in the end the sudden drop off of entertainment and other drawbacks forced me to not recommend this game. I regret it, but I just can't.

First the price: Sure things go on sale and there's bundles (I personally got it in a bundle) but the original asking price is far too high for the average income person compared to what you actually get out of the game.

The game lacks good progression/unlockable balance. There is overall goals and levels but also each item comes with different unlockable goals. This is the only reason you would bother using most beyond a one time try. Basically the system forces you to use items you don't prefer. But if like most people you find a weapon/armor/boost combo you prefer and play it often you run the risk of grinding your overall score up which is connected to your level progression which changes the spawn rates of enemies. And that's where the balance is quickly lost. There's one "right" way to progress and even if you did it and methodically unlocked each upgrade's goals as you got them without wasted plays I still doubt it would stay balanced. And this isn't a complaint about difficulty, I like a challenge and this game gives it when you get a lot of enemies at once. But the spawning balance just ruins a reasonable chance at a goal and makes it a lottery.

And then you finally get to the point where you tap out. The goals you have left become purely luck based or based on enemy spawns that rarely if ever cooperate. Not to mention the goals that don't seem to work as detailed. You some times are left guessing if its a goal you have to achieve in one run or if its culmulative. I have one more overall goal I'll reach for playing with the combo I prefer. But the item goals I have left aren't going to happen. The game goes from a steady two hours of fun challenge of unlocks and goals... To a test of your willpower to grind and grind with items you don't like until you literally get lucky and win the lottery.

Which I guess points out one last flaw. Without the goals this game loses most of it's appeal. With runs so short it isn't rewarding in any way to just play for "fun" without a goal. I'll admit that maybe I'm missing out on fun ending goals or another mode you get if you grind it all out but the grind isn't going to happen.

I like this game and had fun playing it. It was a challenge at times and the gameplay felt great. It was a pleasure to look at stylistically too. But then the fun ended. Beyond being a throw in game in a bundle I can't recommend it. And it isn't a reason to get a bundle either.

This game is probably too good, don't buy it. Unless you like having fun, being challenged, good music and experiencing truly refined game design in its most pure and simple form.

Literally the first game I've liked enough to 100% in years.

11/10 would luft again.

Game is just an arcade shooter that doesn't justify the price. There are multiple plane combinations that you can make, the incentive being that different parts have different missions. However, the "random" generator is so broken that the game forces you to fly around endlessly, hoping that just the right thing spawns at just the right time. For example, when trying to complete a ship killing mission, almost no ships are spawned, Or when trying to more than one of a specific enemy, the there are never more than 1 available. Combine this with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ random situations like have a sea full of battleships (making flying impossible) and it just feels like the game is broken.

Buy this if you like dodging bullets for hours on end, but I would wait for it to drop to under $2 for it to be worth it

You're looking around Steam and you find this game. You think, "Hey, this looks like one of those flash games I'd play at school when I was bored." Then you buy it, start playing it, and suddenly two hours have passed while you mess around and try to shoot down that damn blimp. A bullet hell/Asteroids-esque game that's recommendable for everyone.

Mindless fun. It's not the sort of game I will rack up hundreds of hours playing, but for some mindless action fun, this is spot on. It seems reminiscent of older games I grew up on like Raptor or 1942 but this is modern and the responsiveness of controls I wish I had in those older games. The only con I've found so far is that when you're done playing, there's no quit game button so have to alt+tab out to close the game. That aside, it's an easy game to learn, and easy to get into that one-more-level addictiveness.

Every once in a while you meet a game with deceptively simple gameplay that you keep playing time after time long past when you tell yourself that you HAVE TO STOP playing. This is one of those.

sex game

Hardcore 2D bullet-hell arcade game. 'Nuff said.

Nostalgic, fun, addictive. LUFTRAUSERS is one of Vlambeer's best games they ever created.

It's easy to understand the mechanics at a glance, but the enemies are brutal and I can see how it may easily turn-off many people within the first hour of playing. Once you get a better grasp of how to maneuver in the air and unlock a couple plane parts to experiment with though, it becomes super addictive just to flip and stall your way past the bullet hell.
Highly recommend it to anyone who likes speedy and intense shoot em ups, and especially if you take joy in competing for highscores. Maybe skip it for now if you're only slightly interested, but grab it when it's on sale for sure.

Luftrausers is a 2D Arcade-Style Bullet Hell Shooter. You take control of a single fighter jet, holding off thousand of planes, jets, boats, and submarines until you die. It's essentially achieving the highest score you possibly can. This game isn't easy, it's hard, but mastering is where the game shines.

This game is simple at it's core, but it's filled to the brim with fast paced, non-stop action, sure to get your adrenaline going. You don't fly this thing normally. You can turn it left, right, and accelerate by holding up. This means you can keep your fighter in the air for a good amount of time if you take advantage of the momentum. For enemies, you have your simple planes and boats, but stronger variants pop up, like battleships that have massive HP and fire a barrage of bullets, or aces in the sky with very accurate aim. You need to keep your wits about you, so dodge and shoot your way to victory. Shooting isn't the only way to kill enemies either, you can also ram into enemies for some massive damage, as the expense of losing health quickly. Your health is regenerative, so the way you recover it is to simply not fire your weapon.

However, the best part about this game is the customization. There are literally 125 ways to build your fighter. You can change the weapon, body, and engine, each with their own perks and disadvantages. This makes the game accustomed to have so many different play styles, so you can see which one fits to your choosing. You can have a powerful tank with a cannon and heavy armor, have a super fast engine with a laser beam for quick aiming, or you can have a kamikaze style fighter with massive impact damage and explode spectacularly upon death.

With all these parts, also come missions for each individual part. This gives the player the chance to try out new pieces and accomplish a goal while doing so. Think of it as a reward for trying new things, and testing your skils. It extends replay ability as well.

After you've messed around in normal mode long enough, there's another mode called SFMT, which is essentially hard mode. Battleships, Aces, and more enemies spawn right at the beginning, and it's as frantic as you can imagine, and you WILL die quickly. If you've mastered normal mode, try your skills at SFMT, and see how long you can survive Hell.

Overall, Luftrausers is an incredible arcade style game with blood pumping action that never stops with so much customization in one package. This game is definitely worth full price, and you'll have an awesome time if you enjoy a good challenge.

I haven't been this excited and turned on by the German Air Force since I watched Strike Witches!