I dig up demos almost every Saturday and there are times when some games takes precedent over other because I feel as though some games are just not finished yet. Alpha gameplay demos are a touchy subject, because I don’t really want to judge a game from its alpha gameplay.

It’s fine, I just won’t judge it, I guess.

This week I played the Arrival Zero Earth Demo.

Arrival Zero Earth is an action Rouge lite from Jounitus. AZE will release on Steam, has no current price tag nor a release date.

Circa the 1990s, AZE takes place in Finland during the Winter months. Aliens have invaded Earth and it is up to you, a natural born leader, to rally the troop and take the Earth back from the alien scourge.

The gameplay is pretty straight-forward. AZE’s procedural maps allow the player to navigate an area and find the standard power-ups in the form of units of different types: Assault Rifle, Sniper, Bazooka, and Mine units to name a few standard units, but it is the unusual units like the Psychic Wizard and Kinetic Rod units that make the game more interesting. Each unit has a skill set that sets them apart, so it is important to have at least one of each in your army.

Roam the countryside for loot and power-ups, all the while fighting off waves of alien-like enemies. Again, the power ups consist of you run-of-the-mill rouge lite stuff, I.E attack speed, movement speed, and turrets that deploy while walking to name a few. Units are found primarily found in pubs and abilities are found in chests that litter the area.

Objectives and stats litter both the right and left-hand sides of the screen when playing. It takes up a lot of screen, but it’s helpful.

Combat is automatic, enemies shoot their guns and you shoot yours and you either lose units or obliterate the enemy.

Seems like its based solely on luck if you walk away from a fight.

The game looks like it is in alpha, so like poop. Some colors are nice but the units don’t have a fleshed out design, just little black pixels running about.

AZE’s demo lasted about twenty minutes for the first play through, but I did play it for a lot longer than that. The game falls in the “mindless fun” category for me. There were multiple play throughs that I was absolutely living a power fantasy and was stacked on units and just obliterating the bad guys that made the wrong move of getting in my way.

It’s a fun game with some promising elements to it. I think it has a lot going for it and for now it will continue to sit in my Steam library and continue to be played.