INVERSUS Deluxe is a multi-player arcade shooter that manages to be incredibly competitive with a high skill ceiling despite being very minimalist. The game is near perfect in so many ways and really only falls due to the lack of an active community. Your character can only move on its opposite color. The white player can only move on black, and the black player can only move on white. When you shoot a bullet it changes the color of the spaces it goes across. You can get trapped by being surrounded by same color spaces. You can only hold 6 bullets at once, so your ammo is limited. Luckily, after shooting, your ammo will slowly replenish. Inversus is a lot about making sure you have plenty of space to move and careful ammo management. There are two modes in Inversus: arcade and versus. Both are fleshed out and are fun in their own right. Arcade mode puts 1-2 players against an endless horde of enemies that you have to shoot down for as many points as possible. The enemy variety isn’t that large, but there are just enough enemy types to keep it interesting. Enemies spawn in preset waves, so for the most part you can predict what you’ll be up against next. There are a ton of maps to choose from, some with unique factors such as only shielded enemies or enemies of varying sizes. Each map has its own online leaderboards separated into 1 player and 2 player. Aside from just shooting enemies to gain score, you have several multiplier systems. The first system is simply based on survival. The longer you go without dying, the more score per kill. The second system is based on accuracy. The more shots you hit in a row, the more the multiplier builds up. If either player dies, the multipliers reset. These systems mean the skill ceiling for Arcade mode is very high, especially with 2 players.

Versus mode puts you up against either an incredibly competent AI or an even more competent human being. The goal is simple: shoot your opponent and beat them in a best of 5 match. In the top-down perspective and minimalistic art style and control scheme, you would assume that this would be an easy feat for both sides. How hard can it be to shoot a bullet at another player? The answer is very hard, especially if the other player is good. Versus ends up being a complex, strategic mind game. The bullet speed is too slow to hit a player instantly, so you have to predict exactly where they are going to go. Along with keeping track of that, you have to make sure you have enough space to move around, have access to the powerups on the map, and dodge the other players’ bullets. There is a large selection of maps to choose from, ranging from a small and tight square to a weird screen-wrapped mess that can cause infinitely-traveling bullets. There are several options for playing Inversus. The game supports 2-4 person online multi-player in versus and 2 player arcade. Local multi-player works in both modes and even lets you play with some local and some online in one match. If you don’t have people to play with, the arcade mode works just fine in single-player and the versus mode AI is incredibly intelligent to the point of being nearly as dangerous as a decent player. Inversus lacks a good-sized community, but you can find games through the Discord server where some long time players hang out.

The art style consists of simplistic shapes in a top-down perspective. It’s always easy to understand what is happening. You can unlock several different color palettes to match your preferences. The music is fantastic and upbeat. The sounds are a small step up from the usual arcade game. Controls can be rebound to whatever. It all comes together to give everything a very satisfying feel. I have come across absolutely no bugs or crashes despite a large amount of playtime over the course of several years. Violence comes down to squares shooting lines at squares. When they die, it doesn’t even have much of an explosion animation or any blood. There is player interaction, but it is limited to a curated set of emoticons. There is no text chat or voice chat, so the worst you could get is an angry emoji. I highly recommend Inversus. It’s simplistic yet highly complex within its systems with incredibly polished feel and variety of ways to play. The lack of community is a bummer so make sure to either check out the Discord or grab a friend, but I guarantee that once you find somebody to play with, this one is top notch.