Calamity Condition is a free-to-play shooter game from Aria Mohebi. In this short action experience, you get to control a weird eyeball that shoots projectiles from itself. Travel through different locations in an effort to uncover your origins. You dodge bullets and shoot other weird organisms as you try to survive and find your way.

Despite its extremely short playthrough, Calamity Condition is a promising arcade game reminiscent of Contra: Rogue Corps or Cuphead. Its mix of 2D gameplay plus fixed-image backgrounds give a unique retro feel despite the modernized gameplay physics and mechanics integrated into it.

A short, packed game

As mentioned, the Calamity Condition game has an extremely short playthrough: this is something you can finish within 15 minutes or less. Despite that, it has some serious gameplay mechanics. The eyeball follows your mouse cursor and clicking causes it to fire or use its ability to slow time. You can then use the keyboard to move the eye or to drop a bomb on the enemies.

Aside from the easy controls, the game also has a compelling story. Right at the start of the app, the game offers cryptic prose that gives you a vague idea of what the story is about. You’ll have to uncover the rest of the pieces by completing a level, with an unknown character supposedly telling you what you were meant to do.

Once you complete the game, you are treated to a sequence of images that only leaves you with more questions than answers. Additionally, the game feels sufficiently long only to realize that a few minutes have passed and you’re still looking for more stages to play and more story pieces to uncover. Unfortunately, it ends there as you see the team behind this short treat.

Still, a must-try

Calamity Condition is a game that you should play at least once. It’s not at all difficult, you can finish it in a few minutes, and it has easy controls. Furthermore, it has a gripping and intriguing story that the developers intentionally left that way and makes the game a cult material given enough time. Even if you’re not big on shooters, this is still a great experience.