Post Void is an extremely fast-paced Retraux First-Person Shooter/Roguelike by YCYJ Games, released on 6th August 2020.
With the aesthetic of a bad acid trip and the urgency of a speed high, players take the role of some kind of... headless man-thing with a massive headache, a pistol, and a leaking shrunken head containing water which represents your health. The water constantly drains, but can be refilled by killing enemies. You must urgently race through the linear corridor levels to reach the end before the water drains entirely, all while shooting a small army of creatures and men with gaping mouths for heads. At the end of each level you can choose from one of 3 randomly selected perks which improve your abilities.
Despite its very niche concept, the game has managed to receive at least 2 Spiritual Successors in the form of Mullet Mad Jack and Anger Foot.
View the gameplay trailer here
. The game is currently available on Steam.
This game provides examples of:
- Bizarrchitecture: Most of the game takes place in strange, psychedelia corridors, with twisting paths and inexplicable pits and gaps, somehow always ending with a pond surrounded by a thicket.
- Boom, Headshot!: Shooting enemies in the head is a much more efficient way to dispatch them than regular body shots. Headshots also worth extra points.
- Elite Mooks: The white-suited enemies in the later levels are tougher and deal more damage than the regular black-suited ones.
- Epileptic Flashing Lights: The simple act of pulling the trigger will cause the screen to flash brightly. Considering how often you will shoot during a run, well...
- Excuse Plot: A brief cutscene after the tutorial provides some background as to why you're running around and shooting everything that moves while holding your own head. It's about as incomprehensible as the rest of the game.
- Life Drain: Killing enemies will always restore life back to your idol.
- Losing Your Head: The idol held by the player character is his own head.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Enemies don't just crumple to the floor; they outright explode in a shower of blood and viscera.
- Misidentified Weapons: The "Uzi" resembles a TEC-9 more than anything else.
- Monster Mouth: The enemies all have hungry gaping maws where their heads should be.
- No Name Given: You are a nameless protagonist. It's not even clear who or even what you are.
- Race Against the Clock: Life constantly drains from the idol. When it's completely empty, the game ends. Killing enemies and completing levels are the only ways to restore it.
- Retraux: The game has pixelated graphics, simple level geometry, and pre-Doom style 2D enemies.
- Rocket-Tag Gameplay: Enemies die in a few shots, but so will you. The only way to stay alive is to kill enemies at a breakneck pace.
- Sensory Abuse: Dear God in heaven. The discordant music, trippy art style, flashing lights, and garish colors on top of the incredibly frenetic gamplay makes for a very stressful experience.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Zig-zagged. The shotgun has a massive spread and packs enough power to kill enemies up to moderate ranges. Its primary weakness is its slow fire rate and limited clip size, both of which can be improved through upgrades, but later runs result in bigger Zerg Rushes with harder-to-hit enemies.
- Standard FPS Guns: Every run starts with a pistol, but it can be upgraded to a knife, a machine pistol, or a shotgun.
