Lost Wing is a flying action game from BoxFrog Games and 2Awesome Studio. Tasking players with maneuvering their starfighter down an obstruction filled and winding corridor, Lost Wing challenges their hand eye coordination as the dodge and blast their way through space.
The first thing that jumped out at me when starting up my demo of Lost Wing was the bright neon aesthetic. Bright lights and shiny reflective surfaces give the visual presentation of this game an instantly noticeable sleekness to it. The games visual design does a great job of keeping everything unified in its appearance. As you zip down the guided pathway everything feels like it belongs her. No weird out of place designs break the unity of the game’s flow. Which is good. Unwanted visual distractions would just be one more thing to deal with at high speed.
My demo experience with Lost Wing taught me that their are two options to advancing in this game. Fly around it, or blast your way through it. Unlike most flying action games, however, your blaster is not full of unlimited ammo. Instead, every shot you take consumes charges. Charges are regained through either holding the booster for increased speed or gathering charge orb on the track. This simple mechanic encourages players to keep the speed pressed to the max so they can continue laying down fire.
Along with charge orbs, there are several other power-ups players can find along their flight paths. Smart bombs allow them to clear out obstacles within a given range, wing repairs restore damaged wings which hamper maneuverability, and shrink and grow effects change the size of players ships. However, there is also a fiendish trap left on the track that looks like a helpful aid but is defiantly not. I speak of the flip stage effect.
Showing up periodically during my Lost Wing demo was a little circle made of two curved arrows. Looking like a power-up I initially flew up and eagerly grabbed it only to have my game, literally get turned upside down. This pick up would flip the stage so everything was now on the ceiling of the track. This was nightmarish for me as the controls would also invert the left and right directions when this would happen. This makes sense on the face of it. As, from the point of view of the ship, left and right have been flipped. The problem for me was my brain cannot translate that effect even once I knew it was coming. Hitting one of these items made survival a matter of sheer chance for me.
The rest of the challenges presented in my Lost Wing demo proved to be well-executed, if not overly inspired. Energy beams, spinning obstacles, and low walls requiring jumping, along with a large assortment of random debris-filled my runs. These proved solid challenges so long as I could keep my ship upright.
Walking away from my demo time with Lost Wing I can say that I enjoyed myself. While nothing about it blew me away, it was fun. If you are one who enjoys challenges in the same vein as endless runners this game has some fun potential to offer.
Lost Wing is currently available on PC, and is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch at the end of the month.
