Games are often a labor of love and nowhere is that more true than in single-person development teams. Aurora Games Studio is comprised of a single person who spent six years crafting The Colony: New Haven Chronicles into what it is now. Overhead games are common and so are twin-stick shooters, but there aren’t many that combine those two sub-genres alongside an 8-bit pixel art style, and The Colony does that masterfully.
Taking place in a horror-inspired world where you’re awakened by a neural implant and given intel among a sea of folks that are kind of dead that you should maybe try and lock and load to get out of there ASAP. Avoiding detection is ideal, but not always possible, and fortunately, stealth really doesn’t plan a part in The Colony – at least as one would normally think about it. You still want to avoid making your presence known too much to get the jump on foes and I found that having that stealthy-minded approach made it easier to take folks out because I could attack first and stock on whatever I looted from the bodies.
Blaster Man
The Colony sets you up in a very empty world, much like the original Metroid, and you’re given little overall instruction, which is interesting for a twin-stick game. It’s not all about action, but the healthy blend of careful movement to avoid damage and careful body placement to deal it out is fun. There’s a slower pace to the combat compared to other twin-stick games and moving your arms around with the right stick is slower and more deliberate, but also allows for more dead-on precision when it comes to shooting things like items out of crates too.
The Colony sets you up in a very empty world, much like the original Metroid, and you’re given little overall instruction
There’s an interesting blend of the past meeting the present here beyond just the pixel art style, but also the usage of things like keycards to progress in the world evokes Doom and early FPS games like it. I found it to be a fun little adventure during my time with it and going in expecting something light-hearted led me to appreciate how dark and scary the world built in the game – especially early on.
Shoot ‘em Up
The Colony: New Haven Chronicles is available now onSteamfor $7.99 thanks to a launch week discount, with the full price only being $9.99. It’s a good pickup for anyone craving cerebral twin-stick action and has full controller support even though only keyboard prompts show up in-game.
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