Writings of Mass Deduction

I read slowly. There, I said it. I savour every word when I read. It takes me about 2 minutes to read a single page of a typically-sized novel. That made “Shutshimi” an interesting challenge, as it (among many other things) made me read the text in the game’s between-levels store lightning fast, if I wanted to select a power-up (or, oddly, a power-down) before time ran out.

Fast and frantic is the order of the day with this game. Goldfish are renowned for a short attention span, and here levels play out in super-short segments to match. Whether you shoot anything, get shot, or not, you’re off to the next stage with different enemies, different weapons, and different rules, as fast as if this were an instalment in the WarioWare series. Gameplay isn’t quite as varied as that, it doesn’t stray far from side-scrolling shooting, though it does have a dance party mode and other oddities thrown in. This is a $1 bit of crazy that’s well worth a download.

Here’s what the publisher (awppy) has to say about the game:

“Shütshimi is a randomized shoot’em up about a muscle-bound fish with memory problems defending the seven seas. Armed with your trusty bullet-morphing shotgun, battle through waves of enemies and collect upgrades as you fight through each of the game’s bosses. But there’s a catch: you have an incredibly short attention span. Combat and upgrade cycles only last 10 seconds each, so act fast!”