Void Prison Review

The world is getting ever-so-smaller with the release of Voidrock Studios’ Void Prison, a twin-stick shooter with an ever-shrinking ring. It’s a battle for survival in its frantic world – should players set out to hit the leaderboards, or is it a losing battle?

Void Prison Review

Going into it, one should know that Void Prison is a losing battle – it’s not a matter of staying alive, but staying alive as long as possible. With a single gun and dodge roll at your disposal, it’s up to players to navigate its world and buy a few more precious seconds before they explode into nothing.

There is a bit of good news though: Enemies can’t hurt you in Void Prison. That’s right; one can bump into foes, slam themselves into bullets, and do any number of damage to themselves. However, bumping into any one of these causes the player to fly back in recoil – do that enough times, and you’ll hit the edge of the arena, which will one shot you.

To make matters worse, said arena is constantly shrinking. One’s world is big enough to maneuver as it is, but give it a few minutes and there will be far less real estate to navigate its world. The average run lasts a few minutes on average – unless you’re really good – so expect to work on honing your reflexes in bite-sized chunks.

As a result, Void Prison proudly puts its arcade roots front and center. Some may decry this approach; there’s a reason arcades aren’t as hot as they used to be. However, this very particular playstyle does have its audience, and it’s up to players to determine if they’d like to do things ad infinitem in order to make it ever so slightly farther ahead the next go-around.

It’s just a shame that this bare-bones package doesn’t have too much meat on the bone. Void Prison is less than the price of a half gallon of gas at $2.99 on Steam – an absolute steal in this day and age – but one that doesn’t have much lasting power. There’s leaderboards, 20 different enemy types, and a solid feedback loop, sure. However, it just fails to grab one’s attention in the long term, missing that oh-so-important addiction quality that put the classics on the map.

Even the presentation is lacking. One can deck out their character with different outfits the longer they play, but Void Prison doesn’t have too much of a personality. Also, some of the design choices are a bit questionable; you’ll want to disable the screen shaking right from the get-go, since it adversely impacts runs.

Void Prison is good for short bursts of play, but there’s simply not enough meat on the bone. It doesn’t do too much to stand out, and while it does have a solid foundation, it does not have too much more beyond that.

[embedded content]

This review of Void Prison was done on the PC. The game was purchased digitally.