Astral Court DX Screenshot
Image: LUA COMPUTA

It's hard to believe it now, but the internet used to be cool, round about when the Dreamcast was at its peak. It used to have style. Now, all we have is nostalgia for the era we called Y2K, but at least it's a rich vein of vibes for indie games to mine. Case in point: ASTRAL COURT DX, by LUA COMPUTA! It just launched today! It's free! It is a very silly, simple score-attack platformer with a lot of soul, and I think you should try it out. Again, it's free.

In Astral Court DX, you play as The Prisoner, a chromed-up little angel fella who has gotten bored of centuries of idyllic existence in heaven and turned to an afterlife of crime. Their last chance to avoid being dumped into hell is a televised competition of platforming skill, which is a great excuse to meet a bunch of other weird little characters and indulge in some simple arcade jumping around. This ain't a deep one, or a smart one, but the vibes are great. Sometimes all a game needs to do is make you smile.

On paper, this one's as simple as you can get. A three-button platformer (four if you're playing as a character other than The Prisoner) where you move left, right, and double-jump. Every level has you standing on the scales of heaven's judgement, with one side lowering if you stand on it too long. Your goal is to collect a number of floating stars before you take three hits from the assortment of rotating, homing or shooting enemies floating around the screen with you. Simple, clean, and accompanied by some fittingly old-school techno beats.

While Astral Court DX's mechanics are about as simple as they get, there is a shocking amount of meat on this game's bones - if you really want to chew through everything, expect to spend a few hours on this at least. The story mode has five regular trials (each with 8 levels apiece) to tackle and four boss stages, with each segment book-ended by silly cutscenes and dialogue featuring a cast of shiny low-poly angel-things. There's an Endless mode featuring a bunch of additional levels and trial setups, and Gauntlet mode, which is a faster arcade-style campaign with no story and limited lives.

In the latter two modes, there's a bunch of extra characters to play as, including some guest characters with their own special abilities, like the sniper from the upcoming 500 Caliber Contractz, another silly Y2K-styled game with a great demo that you should probably go and try after playing this one.

ASTRAL COURT DX is out now, doesn't cost a dang thing, and has full Steam Deck compatibility.