Desert Commando

This minigame, you collect bullets. Maybe shoot bullets, but then less bullets.
Return home, get score for bullets. Do again.

"Desert Commando" is a minigame taken out of a RPG where you are dodging enemies moving around a map while gathering bullets. You collect as high a score as possible before your three lives run out. It has a few bumps here and there, is short-lived, but it is a lot of fun for the little while it lasts.

According to the creator, it is supposed to mimmick a badly translated arcade game, and it has a little bit of that feel to it. The dialogue is hilariously clunky and so is the atmosphere. At first glance it looks like a hard-boiled shootingd game, but it is in fact more about dodging than anything else.


Father right.

There is a small map with a few small houses and fences where a number of enemies are semi-randomly walking around, they hurt you when you touch them, no shooting or anything else. There are also a number of chests with healing or what you are searching for.
You can kill enemies in your way, but the shooting system is a little bit awkward, as the enmies are constantly moving without a predictable pattern, and because the projectile speed is very low. Which means you will waste a lot of your score, and should keep it for emergencies - trying to aim also makes you stop moving and more vulnerable. To keep moving is the much better option.


Aww...

The layout is always the same and chests replenish their contents, only the movement differs a little bit. You repeat the cycle of going around the map however many times necessary. After certain scores the enemy speed increases greatly (also indicated by a "level 2" or "level 3" at maximum speed appearing).
This makes it increasingly difficult, altho on level 3 they tend to move back and forth in smaller spaces.

The only real issue I have found is that it is easily possible to be caught in a bad corner and lose all health in one go - and respawning at the exact same location means you can lose multiple lives in one exact spot in a matter of seconds before breaking free. Respawning at the entrance would work much better (and also be more rational as it is indicated that the lives are in fact different people available).

The graphics are decent, I only found the sprites a little bit too rough and clunky compared to the environments, also clashing with the lack of outlines. It is all framed roughly in something looking like a television, and it feels surprisingly neat, adding to the minigame feeling.
The song too is decent fitting the atmosphere, but not particularily outstanding, either.

It is a solid minigame.