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My vigor for hunting down Doujin games has been renewed!!!

... Well, okay, it never really left, but getting Doujin titles for a reasonable price was hard for a while since some sites and devs don't wish to deal with International shoppers. However, that's slowly been changing over the years. While Surugaya on Rakuten still won't directly open their doors to the Western world (and the current "Rakuten Global" is not the best substitute), more sites have been increasing their reach for global audiences who don't mind getting their games digitally, including Indie devs frequenting Japan's various festivals and Comic Markets. Besides DLsite, Playism, Melonbooks and Steam's growing reach, some newer sites are at least somewhat receptive to doing business with us, such as "Booth", the "International Indie Art Marketplace" that strongly caters to independent developers, artists and business enthusiasts alike. This is great because some games won't get localized from some of the more prominent Doujin groups but we can still get access to them. Being a branch of "Pixiv", they are still in the early phases of operation, but some people have migrated to their service to broaden their audience.

That being said, I've been able to get at least one game that I wouldn't be able to through ordinary means: A spin-off to Nonlinear's "Dungeon Prime!", "Vector Prime!". It's a cheap game with a few neat ideas and a modest 500 yen price tag (less than $5) that adds a little more depth to some of the characters from the parent game in a visual adventure style while adding a somewhat addicting puzzle game to the package. The game doesn't have a lot of customization features and the game's "Theme Battle" won't even load on my computer (it always crashes right as the music starts)... heck, the game is even locked at 30FPS (which may be for the best, the game is extremely difficult at the highest difficulty), but what's here is still worth a cup of Joe at Starbucks.

The story continues to follow the misadventures of Hinata and Holon in the town of Edibu as well as the odd characters who get swept up into their journey to gain fame and fortune. The game's story plays out over a few "episodes" which determine the characters, difficulty and unlockables you can gain, though you have to play through one episode before you can unlock the next. If you've played games like "Crossroad Crisis", "Sen-Know", "Pipe Dreams / Loopz", or any puzzle game where you have to "direct the flow of traffic", then you kinda know what to expect here. The main difference here is the game's pace, versus characteristics and unique character traits.

Vector Prime is fast-paced and comes with a simple tutorial to teach you the basics, which are easy to grasp but hard to master. You have to align arrows into a flowing circuit to create chains that will damage your opponent, but it's not that easy; characters have stats that alter many things from their speed, chain damage, jamming (junk counter-attacks), health regeneration, maximum health, and more, and arrows or "vectors" are randomly generated without regard for positioning, so you have to be quick on your feet and place them before your field gets quickly swallowed up. Once you have some arrows to chain, you'll see a thin line that shows the trail they will go in and you can press a button to detonate the vector your circle reticle is on, which starts the sequence. You can still place arrows while this sequence is going and this is the secret to victory as you keep your chain going for as long as possible. Chaining 20-30 vectors is not uncommon with a bit of practice and the concept is actually pretty cool. There's a character with stats to suit nearly every play style, though you'll have to unlock some of them first. I'd like to see this concept examined in even more detail in the future by other developers.

The artwork is nice and the music is decent, and if the crash issues are mainly on my end (hopefully), then I could say it's another decent entry from Nonlinear. If you want other games from this dev, check out our videos for "Dungeon Prime!" and "Starchaser: Priestess of the Night Sky". This is a video clearing the first episode. Enjoy.

Download / Purchase Page:
https://n-linear.booth.pm/items/38382

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