Editor’s Note: We haven’t done a Magical preview yet, so Albert had no idea what he was playing in the true Magical spirit until he started. The usual rules of not being allowed to search for the title apply here, so all opinions about Moo Lander are exclusively those of the author without any influence from other sources. That being said, have fun!
Moo Lander is exactly as you imagined. No, not Neil Armstrong, who says: “a small step for man…”yada, yada, yada. In the first word is not-found an N. this is a game about a spaceship, milk and cows. Hence the word “muh.”During the one-hour demo, I had the pleasure of trying Moo Lander and I must say that it was a journey. It started with a ship that crashed into an not-known world. Without equipment or weapons, I had to navigate through a wooded area full of enemies and obstacles to pick up The most important element of this spaceship: a milk collector.
Why is the milk collector so important? Well, that’s because it’s a game about cows. In addition, the milk collector is the way the spacecraft processes energy and transforms it into useful objects such as the shield, Weapon or sword. That’s right, a milk sword. Anyway, having gained enough experience in sending enemies and solving light puzzles, you can choose from a number of upgrades for the spaceship. While the demo is limited to a handful of skills, the upgrade screen shows the potential of a large number of skills to be explored in the final version.
The recommendation when playing Moo Lander is to use a gamepad. Unfortunately, I objected to this recommendation and used my keyboard and mouse. It was a mistake. Since the ship has a variety of skills, navigation options and weapons, controlling the ship becomes a difficult task.
The WASD keys move the ship while the mouse controls both the shield and The Weapon (if both are equipped) to aim where the shield would protect and fire the Weapon. Now, if you hold down the I key to change weapons and the left control key while pressing the direction in which you want your spaceship to pass, you can see how the control of the ship quickly becomes cumbersome.
Although I have not switched to a gamepad and am continuing with the keyboard and mouse controls, I hope that the full game will take this into account and optimize the controls. An Option to change the buttons of your choice would be great. Otherwise, make the keys at least intuitive, for example by changing the switch Weapons key to a key that is not on the other side of the keyboard.
Another optimization that I hope Moo Lander will take into account is the difficulty of the game. I played on Easy because it was a demo and I’m going blindly. Boy, he gave me a challenge! The problem is that a certain type of enemy appears when his strikes land on solid ground. He creates a copy of himself and therefore also strikes. When this enemy so easily creates a dozen copies of himself and tries to finish one of them to stem the spawning, it becomes really annoying and difficult. By the way, it’s in easy mode. (It really didn’t help either that I chose the keyboard and mouse combination for control.) However, the difficulty really lies only in this enemy (you will know which one when you play the demo), and I hope this is an easy solution for the developers.
A few small reviews aside, I enjoyed playing the demo for Moo Lander. I could see it as a very fun Shmup in the Metroidvania style. The comic factor of the game is refreshing and can sometimes make you laugh. I mean, we’re talking about a game with ships that strike cows with milk cannons. If you feel like getting into bovine shenanigans, you can download the demo here. Moo Lander’s full release isn’t scheduled until next spring, but you should have a good idea of what you’re going to do if you want to get in on the antics now.