When a genre has been around for more than four decades, as the vertical shooter genre has, it can be hard to come up with ways to make a game in that style feel unique. Arkfront, a passion project from developer Shamus Locke and his company Intensity Faucet Games, put its own spin on things when it arrived on iOS devices this past January.
One of its most unique features is hinted at right in its name. At the bottom of the screen is the Ark, your base that you’ll need to protect by flying your ship in front of it and taking out wave after wave of enemies, asteroids, and other hazards. Both your ship and the Ark have their own health meters and part of the fun of Arkfront is trying to manage both in the face of all sorts of dangers.
It doesn’t stop there though, as Arkfront features a full progression system with a number of items and weapons you can unlock and equip to your ship. It really is a neat blend of traditional shoot ’em up fast reaction skills mixed with character progression strategy.
With the basics out of the way, let’s dig into what is in Arkfront’s massive Spring Update which just arrived this week. The main new feature is a Boss Rush mode, which as you can probably guess has you taking on all of the game’s bosses in succession to see how many battles you can survive in a row, and this new mode also comes with a brand new Game Center leaderboard.
The update also adds new randomly generated, optional challenges called Bo...