Aerial_Knight’s DropShot captures the thrill of skydiving and makes it stylish

I’ve always wanted to go skydiving. Aerial_Knight’s DropShot, from indie developer Aerial_Knight, lets me live out that dream — at least in a safe, virtual kind of way. It also lets me shoot bullets from finger guns, wield laser skulls, and wear cool sunglasses while I’m falling through the air. So maybe it’s better than the real thing.

Playing as a character named Smoke Wallace, who was bitten by a dragon that gave him the finger gun that can actually shoot bullets, you plummet toward the ground and try to pick off bad guys with that finger gun or by punching them up close. It’s a first-person game, and the perspective really helps sell the feeling that you’re falling through the sky.

Your goal is to survive each level without taking more than two hits from the bad guys or other dangers like lasers, all while taking down as many enemies as you can as quickly as possible. Your gun has a limited number of bullets, but you can refill your ammo by shooting or flying into balloons you’ll see as you fall.

Each level is short. I finished most of them in 45 seconds to a minute and a half. At the end, you get a letter grade based on how many enemies you take down, maxing out at S+++ if you reach a certain per-level goal. Since the terrain, obstacles, enemies, and speed boosts spawn in the same spot each level, repeating them to try and get that high score turns each level into fast-paced FPS puzzles you can crack to find the optimal route.

The game oozes style. Smoke Wallace has purple skin because of his dragon bite. He wears sunglasses, and you can pick different styles that give you different power-ups for finding the eggs, like one that briefly lets you fire six finger guns at a time. Every time you kill a bad guy, the game briefly goes into slow-motion. You’ll even take on bosses that include dragons and flying tanks. And throughout, you’ll be treated to an awesome heavy metal soundtrack.

I was done with DropShot after about two-and-a-half hours, and I could spend more time grinding S+++ scores if I wanted to. But I think the short length works in the game’s favor: DropShot explores its core mechanics in 50 great levels instead of stretching everything out into something that might wear thin. Even when I was nearing the end, I was still excited every time I flew through the sky.