Writings of Mass Deduction

While I haven’t seen any reviews of this game from any of the major review sites (though, admittedly, I haven’t looked that hard), *someone* has noticed it as it has a 4/5 star rating right now on the Dashboard. “Rainbow Runner” blends the psychedelic visuals (and avoid-’em-up gameplay) of Techno Kitty (an XBLIG I have yet to review) with the running and jumping of a platformer and the colour-matching combat of Ikaruga, to produce something that’s both interesting and challenging. It comes with several modes (arcade, boss attack, endless running, and a mode where you phase through walls by matching their colour, and different difficultly levels to boot. The amount of variety is quite decent for the price.

Your 80 Microsoft Points gets you a game that’s a shooter, an avoid-’em-up, and a forced-running platformer. Some of the individual elements are arguably enhanced: whereas Ikaruga has you matching black and white shots with black and white enemies, here you have four colours of enemies to manage, and successfully dodge (or is it absorb?) the shot if you do so correctly. And did I mention that your character reminds me of the Intellivision “Running Man”? That last point alone made the game a must-try for me, as 30 years later I still haven’t managed to get Intellivision out of my system (nor can I be said to be trying very hard). Any game where the main character looks like the Running Man is already half sold to me before I learn anything else about it.

Here’s what the developer (Progpixel Games) has to say about the game:

“A scrolling shoot ’em up / platformer hybrid. Change colours to match the oncoming enemies or shoot them to survive. Fight relentless bosses in Arcade mode. Features 4 game modes and 5 difficulties.”