''Black Hole'' is a

twin-stick shooter A twin-stick shooter is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video games. It is a multidirectional shooter in which the player character is controlled using two joysticks: one for movement on a flat plane, and one to aim and fire shots at enemies, Usually s ...

by DufGames. It was released in 2016 on

Ouya The Ouya ( ), stylized as OUYA, is an Android-based microconsole developed by Ouya Inc. Julie Uhrman founded the project in 2012, bringing in designer Yves Béhar to collaborate on its design and Muffi Ghadiali as VP of Product Management to ...

and ForgeTV. A version for the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...

was released on February 6, 2018.

Gameplay

''Black Hole'' is a twin-stick shooter in space where the player flies through different black holes in a top-down view and fights numerous enemies located inside the black hole. Choosing one of the ships the player starts off with very little weapon power. Through pickups that the enemies drop the ship can be upgraded between each completed level to enhance the primary weapon, unlock a secondary weapon and other various ship upgrades. At the end of each black hole after several levels there is a boss fight. The game consists of 40 levels across 4 themed black holes or worlds. There are 4 different worlds, mechanical, fire, ice, and beast. The player may choose one of three possible spaceships which can be upgraded in between each level. The game contains 3 difficulty levels and features time and score leaderboards for each of them. Multiple achievements can be unlocked which don't have any influence on the game. In the Nintendo Switch version, a

colorblind Color blindness or color vision deficiency (CVD) is the decreased ability to see color or differences in color. It can impair tasks such as selecting ripe fruit, choosing clothing, and reading traffic lights. Color blindness may make some aca ...

mode and

speedrun Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and can exploit gli ...

mode was added, which changed the differently colored pickups into more readable letters. The game also integrates

HD Rumble Joy-Con are the primary game controllers for the Nintendo Switch video game console. They consist of two individual units, each containing an analog stick and an array of buttons. They can be used while attached to the main Nintendo Switch co ...

, a fully playable touchscreen mode, and also the possibility to play with motion controls or the IR camera, both of which are not meant as the main way of input but more of a fun way to play the game.

Reception

The early reviews state that, while not bringing much new to the

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of chara ...

genre, it is still a solid single player game that fits well on the

References

{{Portal bar, Video games Video games developed in Germany 2018 video games Indie games Nintendo Switch games Single-player video games Twin-stick shooters Ouya games