Brutal Loop

2013 was the year of the twitchy, simple-looking arcade game. The sort of game that made you curse the universe with one breath and rejoice in its existence with the next. It was hardcore gaming writ small, stripped of any gloss or gewgaws and reduced to a bare minimum of play and style.

Brutal Loop tries to continue in that tradition. It's a single-finger reaction tester with a mean streak a mile wide. It's simple enough that anyone can pick it up and play, but after a reasonably sedate start it descends into a molten tempest of screamed blasphemies and crackling lines.

Brutal loopy

A white line swings around a circle that's broken into different segments. One of the segments is bordered in white. It's up to you to tap the screen when the line is passing through the correct segment. Miss it and it's game over.

But you can't wait too long. You get two goes to tap the screen, and if you don't take your shot then it's game over too. And on the second pass the screen deteriorates into static, meaning you're stab at the screen can end up a stab in the relative dark.

A bizarre, off-kilter soundtrack of clicks and electronic noises does little to help, growling out a crescendo as the screen dissolves into scratchy, indistinct lines and your eyes scramble to find the right time to tap.

It's not as graceful in its hatred of you as the likes of Pivvot, but there's a blunt cruelty to every action in Brutal Loop that pummels your mistakes and punishes you for having the temerity not to risk everything and go for the first tap.

Brutal Loop lacks the elegance of some of its contemporaries, as you might expect with a name like that, and it doesn't stick in the brain for as long as some of the true greats of the burgeoning genre either.

It's a fun way to waste a few minutes, but after that there's no compulsion to really push on to see what the later chunks of the game have to offer.

Ultimately, Brutal Loop doesn't quite manage to capture the spirit of the genre. It is brutal, that's for sure, but the hook that catches in your gut and drags you ever onwards that defines the best of the genre is sadly missing.