Day 135 - Bug Brawl

Multiplayer, Fighter, Contains DOOM · 12 Sep 2024

Skeeter’s Take:

Bug Brawl! You are a ladybug! You brawl! Yay!

Bug Brawl feels like a real game - it’s got the appearance of a 3d asset flip game, but there’s some real attention and good ideas put into place here.

First, Bug Brawl features two separate modes:

The Offline version is an arena wave shooter where the player’s goal is to eliminate the computer controlled enemies in each wave and see how many waves they can survive for. There’s even a leaderboard for the survival/arena mode:

The second game mode available is the “Online” mode. I was surprised to see that not only do they offer a VS mode in online, they also have the Survival mode available online as well.

And to my absolute shock - there are servers! Sure, there isn’t a single soul in any of the servers, but they have servers! And they have them across the globe! That’s crazy ambitious to me:

Also, I love that I can pick my Ladybug color - reminds me a lot of Crab Champions.

Or maybe you are more of a “Mystical Midnight” individual?

Gameplay wise, Bug Brawl functions really well. It’s not pushing any boundaries or trying to explore new things. Instead it seems to have one goal in mind - Ladybug arial fights. I’m all here for it:

Now That’s What I Call Gameplay Vol. 29!

Each player has a few tools at their disposal - The main mode of movement is flight, and each ladybug has a sonic wave projectile that acts as the main weapon/gun. The player has two separate buttons for flight control - Space will make the player jump and when pressed again, fly. Then, there’s a “Close Wings” button that will make you fall. I sort of like having these on separate buttons. Allows you to easily hover without having to worry about keeping yourself afloat by constantly pressing space (a-la Flappy Bird). Then, lastly, there is a dash attack that launches the player’s ladybug forward in a fun little spin-dash that feels satisfying (I never managed to kill anything with it, but I was still yelling “do a barrel roll” every time I pressed it.

While it’s a simple concept, and not anything I haven’t seen before, I like Bug Brawl. It’s ambitious, it feels responsive, and is fairly fluid and has all the small details that add up to making it feel like a real game (online servers, leaderboard, etc.) I think this is one of those games you could get a few friends together to play for like a half-hour before getting bored. This could easily be turned into a fun drinking game - YOU DIE YOU DRINK.

Also, this game is in very early access judging by this text at the bottom of the main menu:

I am curious to see where this Ladybug fighting game goes in the future. It seems like it has a ton of potential for new mechanics, powers, weapons, etc. But right now, Bug Brawl feels like a pretty good Mario Party game.

Recommend: Yeah

Replay Percentage Chance: 50%

Time Played: Played: 8 minutes

Sam’s Take:

On day 43 we reviewed Scare Girl. We were very excited to play multiplayer together, which you may realize never happened. That’s because the multiplayer in that game is a lie. There are no servers, you can not invite friends, the whole thing is a front.

So of course before I got too excited about Bug Brawl’s multiplayer, I loaded up two instances to test the multiplayer lobby functionality and…