The new game from the indie developer Edward Curtis-Sivess is best described as a 2-D Dyad. Like that game, In Space features brainstem-tickling waves of hypnotic electronica. Like that game, you play as a little amorphous ship shooting shapes in the distance, and like that game, you get rewarded for shooting matched shapes consecutively.

Unlike that game, however, you’re not racing against the clock/end of the course; instead, you are trying to prevent the shapes from crashing into you. This makes the game more of a pure shooter than Dyad. You can play it either in the aforementioned match-3 mode, or in a pure survival mode where every shot reduces the distance that the shapes have to travel to obliterate you. It’s much simpler than Shawn McGrath’s game, but it’s good in a pinch and probably doesn’t require taking mushrooms to unlock its full potential.

I asked Curtis-Sivess about his influences in making the game.

“I’ve really been inspired,” he responded by email, “by all the indies that make games that manage to feel really full of life and personality in a way you rarely see in the mainstream industry, especially Terry Cavanagh and Kyle Gabler. The games of the 70s and 80s were a massive influence as well. I really like simple, fun game design and In Space was my attempt to reconcile the very contrived, often confusing, nature of early design with more modern approaches to making something enjoyable and playable.”

In Space is five bucks on Desura.