Announced officially earlier today, Bloom Control is a new incremental clicker about zapping an alien infestation into oblivion.
Developed by Element Games (Reality Break), this engaging incremental shooter has you playing as an AI tasked with pointing increasingly powerful lasers at increasingly massive aliens.
And I’m not talking about little grey aliens, either; I’m talking about the eponymous Bloom, an infestation that is spreading across your ship too fast for mere mortals to keep up. It’s your job to upgrade and improve your AI-self, and then keep on zapping until every shred of your enemy has been obliterated.
The bit of Bloom Control I played is set on a space station (the announcement also mentions “corrupted cities and contaminated planets”) and it has got strong sci-fi horror vibes, even if the gameplay is a bit lighter than that. Each chapter takes you through a series of rooms or stages, and each one is full of the invasive alien biomass (although the positions change every time).
Every scene has you looking from a fixed camera, and it plays somewhat like an old-school arcade shooter, but on steroids, as you swipe the cursor from target to target. There are explosives to aim at, different enemy types, and at times it can feel almost like a puzzle as you try to optimise yourself over the line.
Fail or succeed, you’re constantly upgrading and enhancing your capabilities to match the threat in front of you. There’s a really steady pace to the unlocks, but I’ve only played the demo, so the proof really will be in the pudding/game and whether the cadence of unlocks is still fun after several hours. The first signs are encouraging, though.
The full version of Bloom Control is due at some point in 2027, but the demo is available on Steam right now for Windows PC. Check out the new trailer below if you need further persuading.
