Super Crate Box, or: "Super! Great! Rocks!"

Item boxes are a staple of video games, in terms of imagery, gaming culture and in actual application - by extension, so are power-ups. While it's not necessary for me to pontificate upon their evolution from a simple reward scheme for well-timed jumps to a crafted tool designed to maintain the game's pace and a motivator for complex moral conundrums, it's easy to realise how they've endured with versatility as a mainstay of games, both video and otherwise. Not to mention, they tend to make a nice blip noise when one collects them.

Self-indulgent introductions aside, Super Crate Box is a recently-released independent game by Vlambeer that aspires to alter this formula. It is heavily derived from the arcade era of yore and is described by the developers as "an arcade delight with interesting, refreshing game mechanics, cracking retro art and a terribly hip chiptune soundtrack". This is the second-most apt phrase I've heard that epitomises Super Crate Box. The most apt phrase I've heard is "an arcade delight with interesting, refreshing game mechanics, cracking retro art and a terribly hip chiptune soundtrack - and fucking intensely engrossing". This is one of the most addictive and rewarding independent, freeware games that I've ever played.

The gameplay is simple and indeed refreshing: the player has a selection of three small, Mario Bros.-esque levels, and must collect as many crates as possible before being killed by the constant stream of marching and flying nasties. The trick is that only one crate exists on-screen at any one time - when a crate is collected, your weapon is randomly replaced with another from the game's 15+ arsenal and another crate is randomly placed somewhere in the level. Some weapons are simplistic and self-explanatory, like the dual pistols or the revolver, while others are powerful yet impractical, like the minigun or the bazooka. If an enemy reaches the lower hole in the level (obscured by flames), they re-appear at the spawn, viscous, energised and speedier than before. The result is therefore the player managing crate collection, enemy disposal and enemy avoidance, all the while toting a manically fluctuating inventory of manically fluctuating usefulness. This equates to perfect game balance, best summarised, ironically, by the the word "control". The game gives the player the perfect level of control on the outcome, meaning both death and the new high-score are a direct result of the player's competence instead of the game's imposed difficulty. It's a fight against the player's level of competence, rather than a boss or timer, which is the perfect reward and challenge. Incidentally, my level of incompetence is indeed a harsh challenge, both in Super Crate Box and in mundane activities. When losing - and I've lost a lot (both in Super Crate Box and mundane activities) - it never felt as though my run had ended due to a flaw in the game or misappropriated difficulty, but rather a flaw in my technique or a lacking area of my skill. Ultimately, this forms a feedback-loop of incentive to practice and, therefore, play. This is by a wide margin the most entertaining feedback-loop I've ever participated in.

The weapons are distinct, with no two behaving any more than mildly similarly. For instance, both the minigun and the machine gun shoot with rapidity and have a moderate spread, yet I've found myself cursing my luck when having to change from one to the other unceremoniously. The minigun's knockback is great enough to actually use it as a form of convenient locomotion for advanced players, but it deals less damage than the machine gun and has considerable wind-up time, which forces judicious use. No two weapons look the same, further distinguishing them at a glance; this is especially handy, as in the chaos of the game, one can on occasion miss the weapon identifier. My personal favourite is the "disc gun": an imaginative weapon that shoots a disc boasting infinite enemy-penetration. It also bounces off the walls, at which point it become a danger to the player, which just adds another level of player-derived complexity and control.

All of this is delivered in a package wrapped with endearing graphics, stuffed with entertaining sound and marinaded in a whimsically unique style and atmosphere. That's right, this game has an atmosphere. How many independent, freeware games have a palpable atmosphere to compete with Super Crate Box? Spelunky and Eversion are the only that immediately come to mind. This game could easily be sold for profit on Steam, Xbox Live Arcade or the iPhone store, however, I'm decidedly glad that it's not, because I doubt I would have played it if it were. The game is just that delightful, and I'm just that selfish.