Quality Time-Killer: Time Zone
What do you get when you combine the frantic arcade-shooting style of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved with the dual-colored chaos of Schizoid? You get two flavors of games that work so well together, you’ll wonder why no one thought of combining the two before.
Greyson Parrelli uses the best elements of both games to create Time Zone.
Time Zone places you on a 2D plane with the freedom to move in eight directions. Endless waves of enemies spawn in and you must blast away at them with your mouse before they blow your ship to smithereens. The twist is that the enemies come in red and blue colors and you can create colored “time zones” to manipulate their speed. Hold down the Q key and the E key to momentarily stop the game in its tracks and drag the mouse out to create red and blue time zone fields. Enemies that enter the same-colored time zones will slow down, leaving them wide open for your blaster. Conversely, enemies that enter a different-colored time zone will speed up. It all makes for a fast-paced, hair-pulling good time.
For those that feel the game’s time zone mechanic may overcomplicate things — after all, endless waves of enemies rarely gives one the clarity to craft a strategic time zone — the game can be played straight through in Classic mode, with the use of time zones strictly optional. Those that love the time zone idea and need a greater challenge will enjoy the Trap mode, which makes all enemies invincible until they’re caught in a time zone. This game mode can be particularly brutal and bring a lot of joy to expert players and self-masochists. There’s also BombSquad mode, which places bombs everywhere. Let one tick down to zero and the game ends. While not a mode you’ll come back to often, it does offer a nice diversion from the main game.
Time Zone should bring a great sense of satisfaction to gamers everywhere. It’s not only an incredibly fun game to play, but also shows that even the simplest of games continues to evolve. This game shows that making a great game doesn’t require one to reinvent the wheel, but to simply focus on a simple idea and give it enough of a twist to make it fun and fresh. That’s a message that should encourage aspiring indie game designers. If you want to get in on the shape-busting fun of Time Zone, it’s free to play.
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Max Dutt
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Miter Bensderty
