I suspect Galak-Z will ruin my life.
Jake Kazdal, the CEO/Creative Director/Art Director at 17-Bit, dropped by to demo his studio's follow-up to the critically beloved Skulls of the Shogun. Galak-Z looks, at first blush, like a space shooter, but it's more complicated than that. Its inspirations read like a laundry list of Chris Plante's Official Favorite Things: Spelunky, Robotech, Far Cry, Saturday morning cartoons, roguelikes and Star Wars.
What's impressive about Galak-Z is how seamlessly everything blends — that the inspirations play nice together. That the game is structured into procedurally generated episodes of space combat means it has the potential to live alongside Spelunky on my Vita and PS4 as a time-sucking pseudo-drug.
