Geometry Survivor is wonderful nostalgia bait updated for the survivor-like era

I have some ridiculously fond memories of playing Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, to the point of having a mini-party with lots of us sat around an Xbox 360 blasting through high-scores. To see Geometry Survivor appear is quite a highlight. Note: key provided by Evolve.

Taking the visual style of the classic, but putting a spin on it with mechanics that have now been made popular by Vampire Survivors, Geometry Survivor brings the best of both worlds together. Giving you some glorious neon explosions and chaos the classics are known for, but giving you the extra itch of needing another run to unlock some permanent upgrades. 

Here, unlike its inspiration, your weapons fire automatically. So all you need to worry about, like most survivor-likes, is your movement with fast reactions often being needed when you're getting completely swarmed. Well, not just movement, you also need to carefully craft your run through all the in-run upgrades you can pick. As you destroy enemies, and collect little experience orbs, you then get to pick weapons and upgrade them each level.

It's definitely challenging too, much more so than some other survivor games I've played which I appreciated with it. I've found numerous of them too easy, but this feels just about right. 

I only wish there was a lot more of it! Overall it's a little on the basic side of things but that's not really a complaint, more an observation. It's good, and you can have a lot of fun with it if you enjoy arcade smashers. With the different ship types to buy that each come with a unique power like health regeneration or 30% increased game speed, on top of all the permanent upgrades to unlock and each run being a count down from 20 minutes you'll get quite a few happy hours out of it.

Some compatibility notes: on Steam Deck, it works just fine out of the box with Proton 8. On Desktop Linux though, you'll need GE-Proton, otherwise the main menu background is broken as it's a video file Proton doesn't support directly. But Valve recode various videos for Steam Deck. Additionally, sometimes it would fail to launch, but clicking again and all is fine — odd. Performance not an issue at all, top quality on Steam Deck and Desktop Linux as expected.

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Features:

• One hand gameplay: Use just one hand to control the direction of your ship.
• Auto-Shooter: Your weapons fire automatically, letting you concentrate on staying alive.
• Weapons: Each run allows you to get a unique combination of weapons.
• Credits: Earn credits and permanently unlock new upgrades.
• Enemies: Enjoy the multitude of enemies each with their own AI.
• 20 minutes of intense gameplay.
• Retro visuals and music straight from the 80s.

Fantastic price for what it is too at only £4.29 when not on sale. Gets a full thumbs up from me if you love retro-looking arcade action with plenty of chaos.

Check out Geometry Survivor on Steam.