Hit It or Quit It – TeleBlast Early Access

Arena-based shooters have been on the scene since the good ol’ days of Spacewar! in 1962. Tim Veletta’s TeleBlast shakes the space up by pitting friends (or enemies) against one another with bullets that can teleport players. Does it do enough to stand out in the space, or is it a relic of days gone by?

Hit It or Quit It – TeleBlast

A multiplayer game at heart, players must bring a friend or three along for the journey. There is no support for bots, and no online play is available as of this writing. This is unfortunate, as even a basic AI could have given this game some legs. It is awkward to crowd around a single computer to play this game, and is a serious oversight.

Those that can overlook this fault can choose from one of six different triangles and choose from one of the two modes available. The main attraction, TeleBlast, is your basic deathmath scenario. Players must fight against one another until one remains, and this continues until a set amount of kills has been made.

There’s a catch though – players cannot simply fire at their opponent to defeat them. Those that try will be surprised to see their bullet ricochet off of the enemy like it is nothing. Rather, when the bullet is in motion, players can press the fire button a second time to teleport to where the bullet is, creating a force field of energy in its wake. This leads to an offensive style of play, one that encourages players to get up and personal.

It sounds great in theory, but the execution leaves something to be desired. For one, the size of the force field depends on how long the bullet is out in play. For those looking to get a quick kill, the best course of action is to either have a bullet in the field or pray that a quick shot is close enough. The former approach is too imprecise, while the latter approach offers too small of a range and leaves players open. It takes two hits to kill an enemy, so players are still wide open after landing a blow. As a result, matches often devolve into a game of chicken, where all sides don’t want to make a move.

The two maps available in Early Access are fairly uninspired, and do not offer many strategic elements. Made up of two lines and four lines, almost no creativity is at play here. There is no personality to the game, and the single track that plays during battles will not inspire players to fight on.

Those that’d like to mix things up a little bit can play the “Capture the Flag” mode. It works as it should…well, one of the maps does. Despite us trying multiple times, the game kept freezing on us on the second map.

Both of these modes offer a number of variables that tweak some elements, but these modes are fairly limited. There are no time limits or stats to view, so there is not much to play with.

A “Quick Play” mode is also available, but we were not able to get it working. No other options are available as of the Early Access build we played.

Though the concept of teleportation in TeleBlast is unique, the engine could use some serious work. As of right now, there is not enough content or strategy to entice players.