Gun Rounds () from solo developer Blabberf launched this past Sunday, and in the days since, a number of other very good new games have launched in the App Store. However, I still can’t get enough Gun Rounds! I talked about this in our post announcing the game’s release on Monday, but just to reiterate, Gun Rounds is heavily inspired by Moppin’s legendary Downwell in pretty much all ways except the core gameplay. The visual style, the structure of the levels, the power-up system and roguelike features? all these feel incredibly Downwell-y. But when it comes to what you actually DO when playing, these two games couldn’t be more different.
Gun Rounds is a semi-turn-based shooter. You play in portrait with your character near the bottom of the screen and a group of enemies milling about at the top of the screen. For each turn, you choose from your available weapons at the bottom of the screen and then touch and drag to create an aiming arrow to determine which enemy that weapon will fire at. Letting go of the screen fires that weapon, and then it’s the enemy’s turn to attack. Here is where the “semi" in semi-turn-based comes in, because you’re actually able to tap the screen while an attack is incoming, and if you time it appropriately you’ll block that enemy’s shot. Enemies do take turns to attack but it’s in fairly quick succession, so you need to really stay alert and have lightning fast reflexes if you ...