Actian packed Ukraine anti air defense simulator

Utopia Must Fall (UMF) feels essential in the way that Geometry Wars and Stanley Kubrick movies are. Even in Early Access form, it's a potent "more than the sum of its parts" affair and, thanks to its minimalist mechanics and aesthetics, champions a bygone era of vector-based arcade gaming with authenticity. With a modern dash of RNG and sardonic humor, UMF will take up inevitable residence in your brain. It's a total steal at the price and worth it just to behold the utterly bleak, spellbinding title screen, which leverages the classical piece, The Old Castle, by Modest Mussorgsky, to brilliant effect.

Also, if there was a "Dark Souls Lifetime Achievement Award for Most Memorable Game Over Screen" this would win in a heartbeat.

Only piece of feedback for the devs (playing mostly on docked Steam Deck with a gamepad)

* It would be great if the V99 Full-Screen vs. Windowed toggle choice was retained and didn't appear everytime I played. I can't bypass this without switching Steam Deck controller configurations and it adds a bit of friction to play sessions. I know Steam Deck isn't officially supported yet, just something to keep an eye on.

Otherwise, very excited to see where it goes next. Bravo Datasette and Pixeljam!

The graphics are great, the animations are smooth, and it just *feels good* to play. Those are the points in favor. But a game like this lives and dies by its upgrades, and it really falls down in that department.

The upgrades are very linear, by which I mean you get one upgrade, then you get another that makes that one better (more damage, faster fire rate/recharge, longer range, etc.), but synergies are nowhere to be found. The upgrades are even color coded by which group they fall into (main gun, shield, electric arcs, etc.) and there is practically no interaction at all between the groups.

This is made worse by the fact that after a couple of playthroughs you'll feel like you've seen every upgrade in the game. There are two extra semi-hidden upgrade groups you have to unlock by completing an early game challenge, but that's really not enough. Games like Nova Drift give you that feeling of exploring a huge number of potential builds and once in a while getting a broken run, but there's none, and I mean *none*, of that here.

I understand that the overall reviews are excellent, so this is to some degree a "me thing". Just know that if you're looking for a variety of upgrades with synergies and runs that feel very different, this isn't that.

I can't recommend this, but I recognize that many people do. So, just know what you're getting.