PixelJunk Shooter

PixelJunk Shooter belongs to a series of small digital games that studio Q-Games created for PlayStation 3, and of all its titles it's probably the best-balanced blend of action and thought. The player controls a rescue ship making its way into the depths of a planet, searching for trapped scientists. But the caves are full of fluids, and they are the true star of the game: water, lava, and gas behave according to their own physics, mixing and reacting with each other, so lava solidifies into rock upon contact with water, opening up a new path.

This gives rise to a peculiar hybrid gameplay style. Shooting mainly serves to break apart terrain and redirect flows, so most of the progress consists of finding a way to get water where it's hot, or to drain liquid from a sealed chamber. The ship overheats near lava and must be cooled in water, which puts a clear time pressure on every maneuver. Several special suits change the rules, for instance by allowing a dive into lava, and bosses close off individual sections. Visually the game is minimalist and cleanly drawn, the music is calm, electronic, and more atmospheric than action-oriented, which fits well with the pace of discovery.

Reviews were very warm and praised especially how gently the game teaches its mechanics without lengthy tutorials. The PixelJunk series became one of the symbols of an era when the console's digital store was discovering what smaller creators could achieve, and Shooter is probably the easiest of them to recommend. It's still enjoyable to play today, because its main strength, the fluid simulation, doesn't depend on powerful hardware or the trends of its time, and the playfulness of its individual puzzles is timeless.