The third level of EveryDay Shooter, titled "Lush Look Killer"

Confession time: because of our focus on boring, big-budget videogames at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, we missed all of the exciting independent games on display. So when a little birdie informed us that Sony Computer Entertainment had snapped up Queasy Games' award-winning indie title EveryDay Shooter for a Playstation Network release later this year (sooner, rather than later, we're told), we knew that the best way for us to do penance was to bring you the news--first. So we scored an email interview with Queasy's multifarious designer-artist-programmer Jonathan Mak (see here), then jetted over to the swank The Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica to play it on a Playstation 3 test kit, running at 1080p and 60 frames per second, for those of you keeping score at home. It didn't take us long to realize that we were playing something special. After five minutes, we were hooked; after an hour, we had to tear ourselves away to meet up with some fellow journalists for drinks.

EveryDay Shooter is a twin-stick, um, shooter. You steer your ship--in this case, a white pixel--with the left analog stick and fire in whichever direction you push the right analog stick. You can simply shoot down all your enemies and collect the pixels they leave behind for points, but the most efficient way to take them out is to shoot the objects that trigger chain explosions. But each level not only looks completely different from the level that came before, it also has its own rules as to how its explosive chains work. Best of all, the surreal graphics are vector-based, which means that they're created from mathematical equations; and every enemy you destroy plays a musical note or a riff which is layered on top of the default musical theme for the level. The whole thing adds up to a unique experience that requires your complete attention at the start of each level as you try to figure out its rules, then zone out once you know what you're doing.

Our handler couldn't get the cheat codes to work, which meant that our progression was limited to our ability. That got us through three levels of the game, titled "Level 1," "Root of the Heart" and "Lush Look Killer." It's hard to describe what the game sounds like, other than to say each level will remind you of one of your favorite alt-rock bands. We're suckers for synesthesia-based games like Rez and Every Extend Extra, and the feeling of holding the right analog stick forward, unleashing a volley of firepower at a tough-to-kill enemy and hearing a sustained guitar riff blasting out of the speakers is an all-senses-on-deck rush that we can't wait to experience again. From Geometry Wars and Mutant Storm Reloaded to Super Stardust HD and EveryDay shooter, it's clear that the twin-stick shooter is undergoing a renaissance. And if the boredom is the disease afflicting videogames, the best twin-stick shooters--like EveryDay Shooter--are the cure.