Be Kind To Yourself
“Be kind to yourself” is good advice that I haven’t really been following recently. It’s been a tough few months, if my Hot Steam post a while back didn’t already tell you. Got a new cat that doesn’t really get along with the old cat yet, but we’re figuring it out and getting into a rhythm with our new life. And then I got my name and this website in the pages of Uncrank’d issue 3 (buy it physically or digitally!). That really helped turn a Sadderday into a nice Saturday. And also Mouflon Cloud, who made one of my all-time favorite games, Stars of the Screen, sent me a free code to download his latest game, the puzzly, combo-heavy shmup Be Kind To Yourself.
… and also I just found out that I’m in the “Nice things people said” section of Mouflon Cloud’s website. Sometimes I say to myself “wonder why I have all these page views from Czechia” and that’s why. Mouflon Cloud is why! Thanks, Mouflon Cloud, for the link and also this game.
First off, this game is VERY DIFFERENT than Stars of the Screen. There are still weird little things about it and hiding in it, but it’s not, like… a temporal odyssey that’ll make you rethink what video games could be. What it is, though, is a tightly crafted shmup that gets so tense you’ll forget to breathe. In a good way!
I’ve never been really that great at shoot-’em-up games, or shmups for short. But I love them. Whenever we visit our favorite Japanese-arcade-in-America, Akihabara Arcade in Westminster, Colorado, I’m always just pouring quarters into the games where you’re flying around on a little beetle (what’s the name, don’t know, it’s all in Japanese), or Deathsmiles, or DoDonPachi, or my favorite: Ikaruga, which I also have on Dreamcast and GameCube and Xbox 360. This new game, Be Kind To Yourself, reminds me most of Ikaruga, with its polarity-switching gameplay and combo-focused gameplay.
The big difference between Ikaruga and Be Kind To Yourself, though? I’m still no good at Ikaruga and I can’t maintain a combo to save my life. I just try to survive. Not so in BKTY (this is what I’m going to start shortening it to). It has a great little tutorial, and did you know you can control it with the crank? At first I thought it was a horizontal shmup, but that’s just because I was holding the Playdate wrong. It’s actually a vertical shmup, my favorite kind! The crank feels SO GOOD and SO PRECISE to move your ship around and blast shapes.
I was really worried that the combo system would be over my head, because I was first presented with this combo guide. So much… math, and shapes to worry about. But guess what: there’s really not. Mostly just the two shapes, circles and squares. You blast one and it changes color, then you blast another to make a pair, then you can blast either shape a second time to “clear” them and get points. More pairs equals bigger points! The key, though, is symmetry. You can do one circle and one square, or two of each, or three circles and no squares. But don’t you dare do 7 circles and a square. That’s a no-no and will cost you major points. Oh, and your points can go down! You have to “close” your combo or you don’t get ANY points. It’s a great system, even if I did have a leaderboard-topping combo that dissolved because I died. (Top 10, that’s me, TheGameLlama.)
There are memos to find, and power-ups that are dropped (not all beneficial!), and there is a GOAT leaderboard that even the creator of the game hasn’t gotten onto yet. Could you be the first to etch your name in the tablet of history with a score of 1? It’s not as easy as it sounds…
Oh! And there’s a great soundtrack by Seth Walker and szegvari, and if you clear notes to the beat (Def Jam: Icon-style) you get even more bonus points. See you on the leaderboards!
(Get this on Catalog.)
Update on June 8, 2024: Be Kind To Yourself is also now on Itch and had a big update! This update was announced with a video that quoted this very review. Playdate really does have the best community, and I’m proud to be a part of it!