It has been wonderful this past generation to see the indie game development community officially herald in at least a soft return to old-school arcade gaming. Whether it has been in the form of remakes, remixes, or just coming up with new ideas that feel like they belong to the classic arcade era, retro fans have had quite a lot to be excited about.

Since I never played any of the previous Trasmoz games (apparently released on the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad), to my eyes this felt like a familiar-but-different sort of setup. Your goal is to ultimately light each of the 4 torches on each stage, and to do this you’ll first need to knock out 4 enemies of various kinds as you get deeper into the game. Once you kill them they’ll drop a bouncing orb that you’ll hopefully be able to capture quickly, since they can be problematic once they get moving, and each orb will allow you to light one of the torches. In a nod to high score chasers, if you’re able to move quickly you’ll get bonuses for lighting torches in succession before a relatively short combo timer expires. Of course, you’ll also need to concern yourself with a pesky skeleton boss hovering about and dropping jack-o-lanterns, so don’t expect it to be an easy time.

This absolutely has classic arcade design vibes, from the scalable challenge, to the varying stage layouts, to the simple basic rules that leave room for over-achievers. A collection of modes will let you take on the game with unlimited continues, a more classic finite number of credits, and then the tougher speedrun and endless modes if you’re able to unlock them. Among its brethren I’d say it’s somewhere in the middle in terms of a fresh feel and fair challenge, far from being the easiest or most mundane, but also lacking in some classic feels that can set some others apart. Regardless, if you’re a real fan of arcade titles, this is worth adding to your lineup.