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PayPalLove retro boomer shooters and need another to add to your list? Mala Petaka has just arrived on Steam and it's rather colourful. This might be one of the most colourful shooters I've seen in a long time.
More about it: "You play as 'Petaka', an angry amnesiac that's on a journey to revive his memory by exploring multiple universes through warp portal technology. His journey won't be easy because he'll encounter many one-eyed aliens and annoying drones that'll attack him."
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Direct Link
Direct Link
Game Highlights:
- 2 modes available: Story Mode & Horde Mode.
- Various weapons available: fists, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenade launcher, plasma rifle and more!
- All weapons have alternate fire.
- Kill enemies with Fist Barrage by pressing one key to gain health and armor bonuses!
- 20+ enemy types!
- Useful powerups like Time Freeze, Rampage, God Mode.
- Colourful NES-like cartoony graphics.
- 8bit / Chiptune SFX & BGM by Indonesian Chiptunes veterans like Remedmatika, Shakaboyd, Remori, and more!
- 4 difficulty modes for player to choose: Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard.
- You start at the Hub map that let you choose the level you want to beat first via warp portals.
It's using GZDoom, so you can probably get it running in a Native local install of GZDoom on Linux systems. Otherwise, you can try it in Proton.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
About the author - Liam Dawe
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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I'm saying all this as someone who grew up playing games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D in the 1990s, but I am feeling really exhausted with these kinds of games. There are just too many of them coming out all the time, and many of them blur together for me. It feels as though everyone needs to create their own 90s shooter. I think the genre could use a break for a while.
1 Likes
Liam Dawe 5 hours ago
You could say that about pretty much any genre now though, there's more games releasing every year, so every genre is just expanding.
From SteamDB release years:
2025 - 16514 (so far)
2024 - 18326
2023 - 13587
2022 - 11729
2021 - 10751
As for this specific genre, I disagree. They've been some of the big hits on Steam. Look at Ultrakill, it's not even out of Early Access and has over 150,000 user reviews.
From SteamDB release years:
2025 - 16514 (so far)
2024 - 18326
2023 - 13587
2022 - 11729
2021 - 10751
As for this specific genre, I disagree. They've been some of the big hits on Steam. Look at Ultrakill, it's not even out of Early Access and has over 150,000 user reviews.
1 Likes
Yeah. I agree to disagree. I don't see why it matters that there have been some hits on Steam, and I'm only speaking from my perspective. Anyway, it's in your best interest as a gaming news site that they and all games keep coming, so I can see why you'd be all for that. Though maybe that's a problem too. The number of games released in general constantly is also tiring. I don't know; maybe I'm just getting burned out overall. Life is exhausting.
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I'm with Leahi84 on this, although I'm pretty sure Doomguy would disagree. I liked that they remastered Hexen/Heretic, and I think Selaco was well done, but I'm just over-saturated with boomer-shooters now. I honestly don't even play the youtube trailers for them now! I hope they do well, but they're dime a dozen, especially in the last year or so.
I wonder what's prompted their resurgence?
Last edited by scaine on 26 Sep 2025 at 2:11 pm UTC
I wonder what's prompted their resurgence?
Last edited by scaine on 26 Sep 2025 at 2:11 pm UTC
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Liam Dawe 3 hours ago
Much like with the explosion of survivor-likes, a few select games initially came along looking good and did well and just reinvigorated the genre I think.
I'll still agree to disagree, pretty much every genre is just filling up every year. You just see a slice of what I'm interested in covering here, so there is a bias involved in how much you see :)
I'll still agree to disagree, pretty much every genre is just filling up every year. You just see a slice of what I'm interested in covering here, so there is a bias involved in how much you see :)
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As the barrier of entry is lowered and tools become more intuitive it seems like making games is becoming more of a hobby and potential side hustle. Almost all of us have played shooters and so they are an excellent entry point, especially with GZDoom being what it is.
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no_information_here 39 minutes ago
Oh, woe is me. The overflowing bounty of endless entertainment has made my life slightly annoying, having to actually spend time making decisions! Such hardship!
/s
/s
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no_information_here 32 minutes ago
On a more serious note, I am not big into boomer shooters but I like the colourful style of this one.
To me, everything these days seems to be a roguelike, deckbuilder, or online team-battler. Personally, I hate all of those types of games, but I am glad that people are getting things to play that they find fun.
To me, everything these days seems to be a roguelike, deckbuilder, or online team-battler. Personally, I hate all of those types of games, but I am glad that people are getting things to play that they find fun.
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