GLOW Reviews

GLOW is a frustrating random-based arcade game... First of all, it is barely a game. I wouldn't even call it early access, it's more of a proof of concept. At least that would be true for a Unity or Godot game, but this one is made with Bevy, so may be that's an excuse. The main mechanic in this game is glowing red balls of random size that randomly spawn outside of the screen and randomly fly across the screen at randomly chosen initial speed. There is no indication when a ball is about to come out so every moment of you being close to screen's border is a gamble. You can push these balls away from you, but the bigger they are, the less force your push applies to them. Each push makes your hitbox bigger, making collisions more likely to happen, and when you get big enough you explode on your own losing the run. If you don't push for a while you shrink back to the initial size. In game it results in you being unable to gain any control over balls over medium size. You also have to be dangerously close to a ball to push it. In general, smaller balls are easily avoided and bigger ones either can't be pushed away in time or require too many pushes which makes you too big to dodge between them later. And if 2 big balls of somewhat equal size decide to collide in the middle of the screen, they will lose all their momentum and float, stopping other balls and quickly clogging up the entire screen. Sometimes random is generous enough to send all these balls in one direction preventing them from getting stuck. The developer is aware of this problem since there is a bonus item that can remove all balls from the screen upon being picked up. However, if not picked up, it despawns in 20 seconds, so you can't save it for when you really need it. And if it has not despawned yet, it can be cut off from you by a ball or it can even be inside of a ball, making it impossible to pick up in time. There are also balls with pupils that, if you are close enough, track your position and slowly change their direction towards you. And since you have to be close to a ball to push it, the bigger ones manage to gain more speed in your direction than you gave by pushing them away from you. At level 3 a new type of balls appear -- an exploding ball. Upon colliding 3 times it explodes, pushing other balls away from it (and potentially destroying you, if you are nearby). And now smaller balls are a problem too since they get flung at Mach 2 towards you giving you no time to react. And bigger exploding balls generate more power upon explosion. There seems to be no speed limit for physics objects so sometimes they can pass the entire screen in just a few frames, pushed by a big enough explosion. Exploding balls can also detonate outside from the screen, sending a smaller ball towards you. So at any given moment a random ball can end your run which basically describes the entire game. There are also coins that do nothing. Like literally, they are just for the scoreboard. And that's a shame because with these coins you could buy upgrades for your character that would allow you to interact with these balls in different ways. May be you could use a grappling hook or some kind of graviity field to redirect balls using centrifugal force. There could be a dash that would allow you to phase through balls once in a while. May be a rope cannon that I could use to attach balls so the bigger one would drag other away. Damn, the grappling hook alone would make this game so much better! I could slightly alter direction of bigger balls and launch smaller explosives without getting too close to those. If not a grappling hook -- these big balls even look like celestial bodies, why gravity is not a mechanic? The level 4 is a different experience and while it is more skill based than previous 3, I have lost all the interest at this point. I would certanly recommend this game if it was free or at least in early access but it's neither. It's just random. I'm sure the dev reads reviews so please, add some game to it. Or make it free and put on Itch io.

Fun little indie game with nice visuals. The later levels are quite difficult, but they didn't lie when they said it was addictive, because I couldn't stop pressing that retry button.