We all know how crazy the internet can be; one moment you’re just scrolling, the next you’re rushing through the overstimulating digital space without an ad blocker. In this case, that statement may be more literal.
Ctrl + Opt + Out is a first-person shooter roguelike by Fool Combo, a group of game development students from De La Salle College of Saint Benilde. The game is still in development and what is currently out is a vertical slice: like a sample of the overall vision for the project. Despite being a proof of concept made within an academic term, what’s there is feels far more polished than a typical demo.
The story is fairly straightforward: You open a suspicious link which sucks you into the internet. Now you must make your way out as you make your way through cyberspace while many malicious programs hunt you down.
The first thing I really like is the style of the game. Set in the internet, the environment is designed like an ad-filled shopping center to reflect how it can be an overstimulating place where everything competes for your attention. I also appreciate the UI’s design, uses a visual indicator for your bullet count instead of a number so you can tell how much you have left with even outside of your direct focus.
The gameplay is all about speed. Your goal is to make your way out of each area while avoiding obstacles and and enemies. Unlike other level-based shooters, they don’t actually lock the exit doors so you can evade enemies and run out if you need to. With how you can move in this game, sometimes it’s even the best option; movement is fast and controls are very smooth, sliding and/or jumping also increases your velocity. My only comment on movement is their deliberate decision to not allow you to slide when going upstairs; which is understandable but feels somewhat strange.
What makes this game unique is that instead of a health bar, you have Combo: a meter that constantly goes down and ends the game when depleted. Getting hit and shooting the friendly guides removes a large portion of combo while eliminating enemies restores a small portion back. Combo has a max capacity of 300 (around 25 seconds) and also gives a speed boost depending on how much you have.
Moving to combat, Ctrl + Opt + Out arms you with two .50 caliber revolvers. On its own, they are relatively slow to shoot and reload but they can get rid of most enemies in 1-2 shots; pairing this with allowing you to shoot and reload each gun separately, you won’t really find any issues if you handled them well.
Putting everything together, the overall experience is quite addictive and it’s evident that their design philosophy is on keeping the momentum and not letting up. Movement rarely breaks since the exit is not locked behind clearing the area, but their combo system makes it so that fighting is still necessary. Operating the guns separately can make it so that there’s virtually no downtime despite the long reload. Enemies are also designed fairly big so hitting them while in constant movement does not become much of a problem.
In short, Ctrl + Opt + Out is an insanely fun and fast-paced game all about running and gunning. The movement feels smooth, the enemies are all interesting, and the gameplay is really well thought out; designed to be highly replayable and almost never break your flow.
It still surprises me that fellow students have created such a game given all the constraints; surprisingly, outside of my thoughts on sliding up stairs, the only other issue I encountered is slight drop in performance in the first few minutes of running the game due to background loading of resources. The fact that this is only a taste of what they have in store also makes me excited for what’s to come, as they have teased the implementation of more weapons and even an upgrade system. Lucky for me, Fool Combo has announced that they will be showcasing this game in this year’s Philippine GameDev Expo and I am looking forward to seeing them.
