The Great White Destroyer is an Indie PC game developed by independent developer Backyard Ninja. It plays as an arcade action game, something to that of a beat’em up (more of eat’em up in this case) where the main objective is to simply destroy and eat whatever that is in your way. You play as a great white shark and like the title of the game states, you are a destroyer. Yes you destroy everything and anything that pisses you off along the way land or sea.
You control your shark by mainly using just the mouse. For movement, you point your cursor to anywhere you want your shark to move to. For speed control, the left and right mouse buttons are there to vary the speed the shark moves towards the cursor, left being of slowest speed right being medium and both being of the fastest speed. Neat control scheme and really effective for the game I must say. It is simple, easy to pick up and definitely helps players get right into the eating and destroying without much hassle.
Great controls scheme help players get into the game very quickly. The starting few levels teaches the basic concept of the game mechanics while the later few levels introduce slight strategic elements especially within boss fights and the other various enemy types as well. This gradually increase in difficulty makes the game feel new at every instance, allowing players to enjoy themselves while not getting too overwhelmed. These added few strategic elements and gameplay concepts certainly help make the game much more fun and challenging, allowing players to play for a long time without getting bored. I myself got hooked on playing as the levels constantly seem to change and add a new feature every time I proceed further.
The primary objective of most levels is to simply fill up a meter that is supposedly tracking the shark god’s happiness. To do that, you have to simply eat all you see and destroy whatever there is to destroy. There are different kinds of fishes and humans present that require different treatment. All of which being eaten or destroyed results in the meter being slowly filled up. The different enemy types will be slowly introduced in the different levels, keeping the game fresh at all times. For example there are first humans that are simply swimming at the surface but later on you will face divers that will constantly try to shoot their harpoons to kill you.
There are occasional boss battles as well and these battles add variety to the game. Bosses often require more strategy and careful treatment, most of which usually have some kind of pattern that you have to learn in order to defeat them. These boss battles definitely add some challenge to the game and are welcomed after eating those harmless useless swimming humans.
There is this frenzy mode that your shark can get into as well. In this frenzied mode, your shark is somewhat in god mode where everything you touch immediately gets shattered into pieces and bodies getting ripped into nothing but blood. You cannot get hurt within this mode and like it says, you are in frenzy mode and you move like some madass shark on drugs.
There is a score system in place for those competitive gamers as well. The scoring system really makes it an arcade game and to get high scores you simply chain up combos within the levels. Combos can be started in several different ways, the simplest of all is to eat the same types of enemies at one go while others is destroying two enemies in one and those kind of thing. I haven’t actually take notice of how it exactly works but all I know is that during levels if you see that you are on a killing spree, the way your score increases certainly reflects on the situation. Nice feature to add to give it more of an arcade feel and a reason for people to replay as well.
Graphics are simplistic and may seem a little unpolished at first. However, the quality of the graphics are not in whether or not they are in high definition or whether it is of extremely high polish but instead in the style that it has. It definitely gives the kind of stereotypical indie feeling (that of lower budgets) while also adding up to the arcade feeling as well. I’m not sure why but even though I know that it doesn’t really look appealing, it just doesn’t matter at all when you start playing the game. Heck I even started to feel that it is rather good as I got hooked on with the gameplay. With that said, there is this gory blood effect as well that gives you the sense of power as you eat your way through. Really really nice to see the waters filled with the blood of stuff you have killed. Sound effects are on the supposedly arcade style where there isn’t really any voice narrative of any sorts but simply high quirky sounds to represent people talking and several other effects to represent wreckage and so on. Works well and definitely blends in with both the graphics and the gameplay.
There are two modes to choose from, one being the main story and the other being a challenge mode, each having individual fun value to it and definitely worth a play through. There are many different kinds of enemies to keep you entertained and levels to keep playing. A highscore keeps competitive gamers replaying each level and difficulty settings to allow all kinds of players to enjoy the game. For the price of $6.00 USD (around $8 SGD), this game is certainly worth it with all the fun you can get.
p.s hope the developers will get to do a mobile edition of the game, would be real awesome and can certainly make good use of the trend of touch screens as well!
The Great White Destroyer Official Page
Heya Swift, thanks for giving the game a go, glad you enjoy it! YoYoGames is currently getting GameMaker(I made the game with this) games onto the iPhone and iPad, so there’s a pretty certain chance it’ll get on those platforms in the future, where I’m sure it will be right at home.
Also, a bit of info on how the combo system works. Combo Meals are triggered if you eat 2 or more enemies within a short period of time. This same principal applies to most other combos, some are harder to increase such as Superman or Dynamite Catch due to the maneuvers required and needing multiple men or dynamite.
Oh, I should mention my Trick or Treat Sale next week, where the sale is a game!
Hey! Thanks for clarifying about the combo details!
Great fun little game, do update me when the mobile version comes! Gonna be some fun hours spend while on the travel