Since the days of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, the humble first-person shooter has flourished in myriad and complex directions. The genre has expanded in narrative and gameplay terms to include everything from sprawling sci-fi epics to dense objectivist allegories to multiplayer-focused military free-for-alls and practically everything in between.
Sometimes, though, you just want an excuse to shoot a bunch of weird little guys in weird little spaces.
For those times, there is Oddcore, a new Early Access, roguelike boomer shooter that is a stark contrast to the more sprawling self-serious shooters out there. The game’s combination of frenetic, quick-moving action, semi-randomized scenarios, and well-balanced risk/reward upgrade system makes for a pick-up-and-play shooter that I find myself struggling not to pick up and play for a few more quick-hit sessions even as I write this.
Hold on for one more stage
Oddcore begins with a wacky, bare-bones narrative about being trapped in some incomplete theme park resort with an “infinite room generator” that is on the fritz. After the quick tutorial, though, that narrative just serves as an excuse to throw you into a series of off-putting liminal spaces that make you feel like you’re trapped in a corrupted PlayStation 1 disc. Each of these low-res polygonal rooms slowly fills with malformed black-and-white demons, most of which run at you with a fanaticism straight out of Serious Sam, threatening to bite at your ankles or floating menacingly toward you while launching slow-moving pink projectiles at you.
This is not one of those shooters where you cower behind cover and pop up for a quick shot when it’s safe. More often than not, each “variant” arena is a more or less wide-open space where enemies can and will swarm in from every side. You’ll find yourself almost constantly backing away and strafing to avoid encroaching enemies while also keeping your head on a swivel to make sure there aren’t any new threats appearing behind you.
Oh, and did I mention that all this is happening on a tight five-minute timer that’s ticking down as you play? To extend an Oddcore session past that limit, you have to tap a button on your gun to create a portal to a weird shop dimension, where you can spend the souls of dead enemies for more in-game time. You can also spend those souls on a series of slow-machine randomized sets of upgrades to your health, attack speed, and assistance gadgets, or save up those souls to use as a quick health boost in the middle of a firefight.
Every new semi-randomized area you clear increases your total capacity to store souls, but every visit to the portal shop increases the additional “tax” you need to spend on every purchase. This makes the decision of when to warp away to the shop a persistent quandary—do you power up as quickly as possible to increase your chances of survival, or wait until you’ll be able to purchase even more power-ups a little later?
What’s around the corner?
All the while, the enemies keep coming fast and furious, slowly getting faster, tougher, and more capable with each new zone you enter. Through it all, the tight controls, forgiving aim system, and wide variety of weapon and gadget options make every firefight fast, frenetic, and fun.
To keep things from getting too repetitive, you’ll sometimes get thrown into an arena where you have to chase down frolicking golden humanoid flowers or destroy a few giant ambulatory mushrooms—you know, standard tropes of the video game world. You’ll also occasionally get dropped into brief, intentionally off-putting, empty interstitial rooms that seem designed to surprise Twitch viewers more than fit some sort of coherent aesthetic, or “corruptions” that briefly prevent you from gaining health and/or warping away to the convenience shop for a breather.
Between runs, you can move around an ersatz redemption arcade to earn new weapons and gadgets and explore the miniature theme park setting, which is full of hidden crannies and unlockable play spaces. In a few hours of play, I’ve already stumbled on so many secrets by pure accident that I can only imagine unlocking them all will be a real undertaking (and I presume even more will be added as the game moves through Early Access).
The in-game leaderboards and achievements suggest that it is possible to “beat” Oddcore at some point, presumably by combining enough skill and lucky upgrades to power your way through dozens of variants in a single run. Frankly, I’m not sure I’ll ever master the game enough to reach that point. Even so, I’m happy to have a new excuse to take a brain break by shooting a bunch of weird little guys in weird little spaces for a few minutes at a time.
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