Have you ever been playing Operation: Carnage on your old DOS machine and thought, “You know what would make this game better? If I was a princess and shot laser rainbows at tiny Santa’s.” Swedish game designer Daniel Remar must have heard you. He began development on his latest release, Hyper Princess Pitch. This 16-bit arcade style game puts you in the shoes of the spoiled and entitled Princess Pitch (featured as a side character in Garden Gnome Carnage). The princess and her furry friend, Catstrike, are out for revenge on Mecha Santa for skimping on the presents this year. “If I don’t get presents, no one does!” she exclaims during the establishing cut scenes while trying her hardest to forcibly separate Santa’s beard from his chin. Right out of the gate you get the feeling that this girl is no Disney princess, she is her own lady with a taste for destruction.
After Catstrike drops you in front of Santa’s fortress, you’ll find yourself in a small outdoor staging area where a brief summery of the keyboard commands is available. Anyone who grew up playing older systems or arcade games will have no problem picking up the first generation Nintendo-like controls quickly. However, if you are used to duel control stick games, the fast paced (and at times cumbersome) enemies may give you a run for your money at first. This game looks cuddly and sweet but it quickly proves to be a worthy challenge. As someone who has played mostly with newer console systems, it took me a few tries to get past the first stage using the directional pad on the keyboard but persistence will pay off eventually if you’re willing to put in a little extra time. This staging area is really your only time to mess around with your various weapons before the non-stop carnage begins. Princess Pitch is pretty heavily armed with three guns, each firing a different, but deadly, projectile. The guns have different strengths and can be momentarily upgraded with power-ups that appear around each room in Santa’s factory. There are also opportunities to grab Pac Man style fruits for extra points as well as hearts to regain your life force.
Once the game play begins in the first room, you are immediately overtaken by tiny Santa’s that will continuously run a-muck till you manage to destroy them. From there, enemies only become larger and more numerous as you become better at dodging and shooting simultaneously. There are certain points where you think they could never fit more bad guys on to the screen and then the next stage proves you wrong. Luckily, even if this flood of baddies does take you a few frustrating tries, you’ll certainly be giggling all the way through it due to the over-the-top, princess powered graphics. Aside from all of the usual Christmas characters (mostly some form of fighting Santa), Princess Pitch’s world is one of glittering fireballs and exploding rainbows that are at times so cute, you forget they can kill you. Imagine if the My Little Ponies suddenly started to make nuclear weapons and you’ve got it. This vibrant and colorful façade has given this game the tongue and cheek feel that it needs to separate itself from other 16-bit inspired games.
Hyper Princess Pitch also has built in replay value with five difficulties to choose from, one with a special surprise ending. That said, you do need to get through it a first time which can take a few tries in it self. Though Daniel Remar insists on releasing his games independently so they can be free to everyone, I could see paying a few Microsoft points to download this to my Xbox (then I can see rainbows explode on a bigger screen then my laptop). Princess Pitch kept my work breaks busy for a good week and I will definitely go back to try for that high score in the near future. It’s cute, it’s fun and about half the game is stuff blowing up so it is most certainly worth a try. Be sure to put aside a good chunk of time though, you wont be able to stop till you make Mecha Santa pay!
To play Hyper Princess Pitch and Daniel Remar’s other great 100% free games, visit his website Daniel’s Base.