One Btn Bosses

It doesn't get much simpler than pressing a single button to engage in a game. While you can always put a visual novel on autoskip if you really want to do nothing but stare at the screen in front of you, One Btn Bosses instead asks that you activate your brain and take on its simplistic, difficult shape-based boss fights.

For Outersloth's second release as a publisher, the three-person team over at Midnight Munchies has crafted an instantly addicting bullet hell. You begin the game as a lowly triangle trying to make his way up the corporate ladder. Through meetings with HR (that's Hint Robot, to you) you'll learn the basic mechanics and the types of attacks enemies can throw at you before pitting yourself against nefarious shapes, each moulded after a type of horrible boss we've all experienced in our working lives.

The gameplay itself - as you might guess - relies on a single button press. Either with your spacebar or a click of your mouse, you move around the small shape that makes up your arena, dodging projectiles that can easily overwhelm. You'll automatically shoot while moving around the arena, building more powerful shots as you gain speed, but each time you press the button to change direction and dodge an attack, you'll revert back to hitting the boss with a piddly pea-shooter. It's deliciously addictive gameplay, constantly baiting you into being greedy and trading away one of your three precious lives.

Despite the game being centred around a single button, it proves to be quite difficult. Enemy attacks can quickly overwhelm the screen, and while you can learn a bosses' pattern in the campaign, the erratic nature of their attacks can still throw you off guard even after multiple attempts. It's difficult to grow angry or despondent with One Btn Bosses, though, even as the bosses taunt you each time you die by their hand. The campaign is split per boss, with each boss having a series of levels that you can pick and choose from at will. You don't need to beat every level to advance, and can therefore just deal with the more manageable levels to begin with. There's also the roguelike mode, which combines some light deck-building with the one-button addictive gameplay to ensure that you can keep playing randomised fights even when you're done with the admittedly short campaign.

You can also grab power-ups during both the campaign and roguelike mode, earning grind points after each battle which can unlock new movement, attack, and utility options. You can also get different colour palettes, letting you style the game in your preferred colours to make yourself, the bosses, arenas, and enemy attacks pop on your screen alongside the thumping retro soundtrack. The power-ups/different abilities you get are interesting on paper, like having the ability to dash through enemy attacks instead of turning away from them, and picking up your attack on the arena in order to then fling it back at an enemy, but the starting abilities are so useful that it's difficult to see the strengths in the others. Considering One Btn Bosses' difficulty as well, even in the HR training missions, you don't really get a chance to check out or get used to the new abilities, and often just stick with what you know.

That doesn't mean I didn't find any use for other attack and movement options. Pick-Up was a really good attack on any arena that just used a line, while Dash could be great if it ever felt like the entire arena was covered in enemy attacks. However, Turn and Shoot were my bread and butter throughout, and it does feel like the bosses are designed with them in mind. Perhaps I could have explored other options had there been some more spacious arenas to play in, but One Btn Bosses doesn't really push the boat out when it comes to arena design. This does feel intended, and so it's almost something I wasn't going to critique, but after playing through the game, it did feel as though most of the shape arenas were similar to one another. It builds on the simplicity of the overall experience but was something I would have liked to see a bit more variety in.

That didn't stop One Btn Bosses from being a great experience, though. It's got all the hallmarks of a bullet-hell standout and the simplicity of its gameplay design had me staying up far too late going for just one more attempt at a boss. Like Balatro before it, it's another indie hit this year where I can feel it ever so easily taking hours of time in the blink of an eye.