Insect Swarm

Insect Swarm is a sci-fi twin-stick shooter set on a barren desert planet overrun by hostile alien creatures known as ‘Blood Insects’. Players control a lone survivor who must fight against endless hordes of insects, explore a vast borderless map, collect rare energy-rich minerals, and upgrade their mech and weapons with unlimited progression. The game features a unique mech mode with melee weapons and heavy Gatling guns, offering both keyboard movement and mouse-based combat. The story revolves around surviving the insect onslaught after mining operations disturbed the creatures, with the ultimate goal of escaping the planet and potentially destroying it to end the threat forever.

Insect Swarm: A Gritty Ode to Survival in the Face of Infinite Chitin

In the vast, often repetitive cosmos of indie action games, where twin-stick shooters and horde survival titles bloom and fade with the seasons, a title emerges every so often that doesn’t reinvent the wheel but instead polishes it to a brilliant, menacing sheen. Insect Swarm, from developer Parallel Portal and publisher NPC Entertainment, is one such title. It is a game that understands its genre’s primal appeal—the cathartic release of holding the line against an overwhelming tide—and executes it with a satisfying, if occasionally flawed, mechanical depth. This is not a game of subtlety; it is a game of survival, upgrade loops, and the relentless, satisfying crunch of alien carapaces.

Development History & Context

A Modern Indie in a Crowded Arena

Insect Swarm was released into a gaming landscape in 2022 that was densely populated with indie darlings and retro-inspired shooters. Developed by Parallel Portal using the Unity engine, the game is a product of its accessible technological era, yet it carries the spirit of a much older, arcade-hardened design philosophy. Unlike the pixel-art roguelikes that dominate the scene, Insect Swarm opts for a more modern 2.5D, diagonal-down perspective, leveraging Unity’s capabilities to render vast, borderless maps teeming with hundreds of individually tracked enemies.

The vision, as gleaned from the developer’s own descriptions, was clear: create a “flying shooting game” that emphasizes persistent progression, free exploration, and unending upgrades. This was not designed as a fleeting roguelike experience where runs are discarded, but as a campaign of gradual, tangible power accumulation. The studio operated with a clear understanding of its niche, targeting players who find meditative satisfaction in grinding for resources and watching numbers go up, all while engaged in intense vehicular combat. The game entered Steam Early Access, a common and prudent path for small developers, allowing for community feedback to shape its evolution toward its full release in September 2024.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

A Classic Sci-Fi Tragedy of Greed and Retribution

The narrative of Insect Swarm is a quintessential sci-fi horror setup, delivered with the grim efficiency of a classic B-movie. You are the last survivor on a newly discovered desert planet, initially hailed for its abundance of rare, energy-rich crystals. The tragic irony is quickly unveiled: these crystals are not minerals but the “highly concentrated blood” of the native “Blood Insects,” a slumbering species violently awakened by humanity’s rapacious mining operations. The insects’ retaliatory swarm has wiped out all colonial presence, leaving you alone in a “hell” of your species’ own making.

The story is a blunt but effective allegory for ecological exploitation and the unforeseen consequences of colonial ambition. The player’s role shifts from miner to survivor, and ultimately to potential executioner, with the final goal being nothing less than the total destruction of the planet to “put an end to this trouble once and for all.” There are no moral quandaries offered; it is a simple, desperate fight for existence against a rightfully vengeful nature. The dialogue is sparse, communicated through mission objectives and upgrade descriptions, reinforcing the loneliness and singular focus of the protagonist’s mission. The theme is one of pure, unadulterated survival against a force that cannot be reasoned with, only fought.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

The Core Loop: Grind, Upgrade, Survive

At its heart, Insect Swarm is a hybrid twin-stick shooter and base-management simulator. The player controls a land speeder (and later, a mech) from a top-down perspective, using keyboard movement and mouse-aiming for precise shooting and melee attacks.

• The Core Loop: The gameplay is built on a profoundly satisfying loop: venture out from your fortified base, defeat swarms of insects, collect the blood crystals they drop, and return to invest those crystals into permanent upgrades. These upgrades cover every aspect of your arsenal and vehicle: firepower, armor, speed, cargo capacity, and energy reserves. Crucially, the game boasts that “all upgrades have no level cap,” a feature that directly caters to the player who delights in infinite progression.

• Combat & Controls: Combat is a tense, chaotic dance. The controls are noted by players to have a “good feel to it,” with a weightiness to the vehicle that makes maneuvering through swarms perilous and deliberate. The game offers a primary and secondary weapon slot, allowing for builds focused on area-of-effect electric damage, precision lasers, or heavy ballistics. A sophisticated, if poorly explained, energy management system is key to survival. Energy is consumed for:

  • Boosting: Holding Shift to move faster.
  • Jumping: Evading threats or navigating terrain.
  • Shielding: As discovered by the community, energy automatically acts as a shield, depleting to absorb damage before your health bar is touched. This adds a crucial strategic layer to resource management during combat.

• The Mech: A standout feature is the ability to press F to switch into a “Mecha mode.” This transforms the gameplay, trading agility for raw power, equipping a extended-reach melee weapon and a heavy Gatling gun. It is a monumental power fantasy, but one that requires a “substantial investment of crystals to upgrade and maintain,” rightly positioning it as an end-game luxury.

• Critique & Flaws: The game’s primary weakness, as noted in reviews, is its repetitiveness. The grind for crystals can be long, and the lack of enemy variety (beyond standard swarms and elite “xenomorph-like” variants) means the core action changes little over time. Furthermore, the UI and tooltips are criticized for being insufficient, leaving players to discover complex systems like energy shielding through community forums rather than in-game tutorials. Performance can also stutter during the most intense on-screen swarms, a technical hurdle the Unity engine doesn’t always clear.

World-Building, Art & Sound

A Desolate, Gritty Playground

The world of Insect Swarm is a “barren desert” planet, rendered in a gritty, realistic 2.5D style. The art direction effectively sells the isolation and devastation, with the ruins of mining equipment littering the landscape. The borderless map encourages exploration, but the ever-present threat of the swarm ensures that no journey is ever safe.

The sound design is functional, with the cacophony of insect screeches and weapon reports selling the chaos of battle. However, it is the audio that receives the most pointed feedback from players. The soundtrack, composed of metal riffs, was a point of contention. One player noted they would “prefer a powerful classical score” to complement the desperate survival atmosphere, while others found it “fine.” This divide highlights a slight misalignment between the game’s grim tone and its aggressive, perhaps overly energetic, soundtrack. The visual effects, such as the laser “charging” effect on certain elites, are noted to be purely cosmetic, sometimes creating anticipation for a mechanic that doesn’t exist.

Reception & Legacy

A Quiet Success Story

Insect Swarm was not a blockbuster hit, but it found a dedicated audience. With an estimated 72,270 units sold and nearly $478k in gross revenue, it stands as a solid commercial success for a small indie title. Its Steam review rating sits at a “Very Positive” 84% from over 2,400 reviews, a testament to its ability to deliver exactly what it promises to its target audience.

Its legacy is one of refined execution within a well-established niche. It did not create the horde survival or twin-stick shooter genre, but it synthesized elements from both into a package with a compelling, persistent progression system. Its influence can be seen in the way it validates a model of infinite upgrades, a feature more common in mobile games, within a core PC action experience. It is a game that proved there is still a vibrant audience for a straightforward, grind-heavy shooter that respects the player’s desire for long-term power growth.

Conclusion

Insect Swarm is a compelling and brutally efficient piece of game design. It is unapologetic in its repetitive nature because the core loop of combat and progression is so intrinsically satisfying. While it stumbles in its lack of enemy variety, occasional performance issues, and sometimes opaque mechanics, its strengths—the weighty combat, the deep upgrade systems, the thrilling mech transformation, and the effective atmospheric setting—far outweigh its weaknesses.

It is not a revolutionary title, but a evolutionary one. It takes a familiar formula and polishes it to a fine sheen, offering dozens of hours of cathartic action for a remarkably affordable price. For fans of games like Smash TV, Alien Shooter, or Vampire Survivors who crave more direct control and permanent progression, Insect Swarm is an unqualified recommendation. It secures its place in video game history as a quintessential example of its subgenre—a gritty, satisfying, and ultimately successful battle against the swarm.