Person Shooter: Metagun

Metagun is a game about a man who fires a gun that fires men who fire guns. At you. Which would rather seem to defeat the point, but as you can't fire bullets, only little men, you need their bullets to destroy stuff and open up pathways for you. Lure the deadly bullets towards whatever you need to be shot, then duck out the way before you end up sporting more holes than Swiss nano-cheese. It's about progress (and egress) via near-suicide, essentially. Then stuff gets bigger, and deadlier.

Oh yes, and it was created for the indie goldmine that is the latest Ludum Dare gamejam by a chap called Notch, one of the one-man Minecraft team. He'd like to show you his working. You can watch the entire 48 hour creation process of Metagun below, cunningly compressed into just six minutes.

As a game, its idea is perhaps stronger than its (slightly over-fiddly) execution. But what an idea it is. You shoot out little men who shoot back at you; it's not just a gun, but a metagun. Violence never solves anything, etc. Well, except for navigation-based puzzles.

Better yet, damage is semi-denoted by your hat. If your hat has been shot off, you won't last much longer. If you go pick your hat up again - risking backtracking through a hail of mini-man gunfire - you'll be on surer footing. More hat-based risks in games, please.

Here's Notch's timelapse video of the game's creation. Pretty amazing stuff - he created essentially every element of the game from scratch, within just 48 hours. I feel duty-bound to deploy the word "agog."

Thanks to all the folks who passed this our way. Fun!