Time Wasters

I bounced off this game when I first bought it because of the sheer volume and layers of stuff on the screen, but I picked it up again as part of my Survivorslike Rodeo and fell right in. Time Wasters by Proton Studio is an aptly-named Survivorslike in a shmup skin (shmuplike?) that gives the player the maneuverability of a space ship, including a boost ability, and loads of pilots and weapons to choose from. The level is filled with different types of timed based the player can use for recovery and other effects, and bosses and invasions of those bases occur at regular intervals. The player picks up permenant upgrades by collecting Space Cubes, but there are a variety of powerups scattered or generated across the levels, including healing, rerolls (Time Cubes), and other items. The goal is to survive 120 enemy waves, including bosses.

The faster-pace of this game means the player must rely on boost and manuverability to get out of tight spots. The enemy ship swarms are utterly relentless, and figuring out how to corral and destroy them efficiently is a significant part of gameplay. Later in the round, more shmup-like bullet formations come into play. At regular intervals, bosses appear or enemies attack one of your bases, and in the case of the bases if you’re not adequately powered up you won’t be able to save it from destruction.

Once you get the hang of All The Things this is a lot of fun, and I thoroughly enjoy it with a controller. What’s particularly neat is once you start perma-upgrading your captains, you sometimes get a random opportunity to recruit a captain and add her perma-upgrades to your current ship, which is a nice boon.

This game is truly the epitome of “just one more” and this feels like a natural evolution of Vampire Survivors for players who have sunk some time into that game but want something a little faster.

There are a few things that diminish the fun for me. The game rounds can last much longer than other games I’ve played in this genre. My longest run was 40 minutes, but it was that long in part because I ended up in holding patterns with bosses multiple times. Elite bosses often have intermittent invulnerability, which drags out boss battles even if you’re properly weaponized. The general sponginess of the bosses is one of my chief complaints because often I find myself “hanging out” in a boss circle, slowly wearing it down, and not really doing much of anything else. Getting Space Cubes to upgrade your character and bases occurs at probability, so sometimes you fail and sometimes you gather as many as 5. This is a bit different than the loot boxes in other survivorslikes, where you are always guaranteed at least 1 upgrade.