Black Paradox 4+

Great game, I love the VHS-style design, the music, the gameplay, and the boss fights are challenging enough.

Some issues:

When you beat the game and then play again right after, it takes you back to the final level. No power ups or anything, you start the game over but in the last level. If you beat the final boss again, you get the same cycle. This must be a bug in the game. If you DIE on the last level during this, you go to the “play again” screen but it won’t let you press the button, and you’re just stuck in that screen and have to completely close out the game and reopen to play again.

Also, during the ending credits, there is some text that says “press start to skip,” meaning skip the credits. There is no start button tho, and I’ve pressed all over the screen and nothing. You have to watch the credits every time.

The game also, rarely, stops firing your guns for no reason and you have to tap all over the screen like an insane person to get it to start up again.

Playing on iPhoneX

Otherwise a great game. Will give 5 stars when the bugs are ironed out.

UPDATE:
They have fixed the issue with repeating the last level after beating the game. The other bugs are still present.

This is a perfectly designed side scrolling shooter in my mind. I like that even though it’s Rogue-like, you can preserve upgrades to make progressing through the game easier as time goes on.

However, I have found that I have to force myself to die in order to get the Garage to display new upgrades for purchase. This means that I find myself purposely dying on the final boss and forfeiting the money I would get from beating him just because if I don’t die, no matter how many times I run through the game, the same upgrades will remain present in the store.

Also, it would be nice to have some sort of web site we could reference to determine what each end of level mod does, rather than the obscure description it gives with certain mods/drones/chips after beating a boss. This could also be done in-game with a help/info button.

Outside of these two things, the game is exactly what I’ve been looking for and I must give the designers/developers a lot of credit with putting together such a wonderful game. Looking forward to more updates which will hopefully include new levels and boss fights along with the bug fixes mentioned above! (Oh, and new weapons too!)

Keep up the great work. 👍

Why does the animation and scrolling feel so choppy even on an iPhone 13 Pro? Is it still running in 30 FPS? This is 2022, please at least update it to 60 FPS if not 120.

When compared to older games like Sky Force, Black Paradox just feels too laggy to enjoy. Fluid movement and smooth control are crucial to a hardcore shoot ‘em up.

Other than that, the artwork and music are amazing. Just a shame that the frame rate is too jarring for me to play it past the first stage.