Quick Slick Deadly (QSD) is a fast, side-scrolling arcade-style title from Adventurous Productions. Basically speaking, there are two incarnations of this game: the version available up through November 8 (which I’ll refer to as 11/8) and the patched November 9 version (11/9). If you are brand new to the game, you will never experience the former. This could be seen as either fortune or misfortune, depending on your disposition!
The game’s concept is simple enough. You board one of three classes of the spaceship and embark on short little mini-missions, often taking less than one minute to complete. At first only “The Fighter” is available. You will have to unlock the other two by finishing a predetermined number of missions. The following describes all three classes:
The Fighter: Begins with a standard, albeit weak blaster weapon. As you destroy enemies, your blast radius grows, covering an exponentially larger area. Should you destroy three identical enemies in a row, your ship will create a clone of that enemy’s weapon!
The Survivor: Gains energy by coming into close proximity to enemy shots. You can convert this energy into a shield right away, or wait to collect maximum energy to perform your own mega-attack. If you can gain enough speed, your ship enters “ghost mode” and becomes invincible!
The Trickster: By performing risky in-flight maneuvers, you build up energy to repel enemy fire and return it right back at them! Unleash a powerful boomerang that while fatal, reduces control over your own ship. If you build up enough speed, you’ll eventually be able to destroy enemies simply by crashing into them! This is clearly the most fun, albeit most difficult class to play.
Now let’s take a look at missions. For this review, we’ll limit our discussion to the first five…all accomplished by The Fighter. The following screen clips show the mission objectives for the 11/8 release:
Mission 1 requires you to navigate a short asteroid field without taking any damage. I was able to do this fairly easily on my second attempt. It wasn’t difficult…just took a little getting used to.
Mission 2 requires you to navigate the asteroid field again, this time within 17 seconds. On the surface, this is not possible. Here, however, you will come across energy rings. Fly through them to boost your speed. The more rings you tag in quick succession, the greater your ship’s speed bursts. After five tries, I finally managed a 16.9-second finish.
Mission 3 demands that you destroy at least 2 enemy ships while navigating through the asteroids. This isn’t easy, as foes are crafty critters; dodging your shots and firing pellets of their own…not to mention the asteroids, which are becoming more numerous by the mission. This one took me 4 tries.
Mission 4 is designed to teach you about The Fighter’s secondary weaponry. If you destroy 3 like enemies in a row, your ship can clone their attack (as mentioned earlier). This is not so difficult on its own, but it’s enough of a chore to get caught off guard by a deadly light beam near the mission’s end! I succeeded on my 4th attempt.
Mission 5 teaches an alternate way to engage your secondary weapon: in-flight collectibles. By picking up energy bits, you power up an actual energy “ball”. It sounds easy, but there simply aren’t that many bits to find…gotta catch ’em all. I finished this one on my 5th attempt.
The verdict for 11/8? Frustrating, but eventually doable. Now let’s examine changes brought in with 11/9:
Mission 1 – Asteroid Field: Has no winning condition anymore. You automatically succeed.
- Mission 2 – Time Pressure: The time limit has been increased from 17 to 19 seconds.
- Mission 3 – Scroll Shooting: Destroying 1 enemy is enough to succeed.
- Mission 4 – Hunt the Hunter: Removed the deadly light beam at the end.
- Mission 5 – Homing Rocks: Increased the number of collectible items.
Thanks and kudos to Adventurous Productions for making these changes. The game is much more fun to play now.
Overall, is Quick Slick Deadly worth it? Even though the price is low ($3 USD), I’d only recommend 11/9. And since that’s all you can get now, it looks like you’re in luck!
-Chris Roberts-
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!
Hi Chris,
I’m the developer of Quick Slick Deadly and I would like to thank you sincerely for this nice review! 🙂
However, I hope it’s OK if I point out that the description you have given for the fifth mission is actually not correct. You don’t get the homing energy ball by collecting the collectibles. You get it by destroying three enemies that have the homing energy ball as their attack (just like copying any other enemy attack). What’s different here is that you need to collect the collectibles in this mission in order to prevent your secondary attack from switching to a different attack when you destroy other types of enemies.
In any case, thanks again! 🙂
Thank you for the clarification. I like games that are straightforward in premise yet challenging to play. I look forward to your next title!
I’m very glad you liked the game! 🙂 Could you please do me a big favor and also leave a review on the steam store page? I would greatly appreciate your help!
Also, several more updates have been made to the game that might interest you. Please check them out here: http://steamcommunity.com/games/399270/announcements/
It should be there as a Curator review.
Yes, thank you, I have added the curator review to the page. But could you please do me a favor and also add a customer review? Because it’s only the customer reviews that influence the average rating of the game. Again, thank you guys a lot!
Thank you so, so much for adding your review in the costumer section! *:D*
Hi Chris,
I have uploaded a video of Quick Slick Deadly, which might interest you. Please read more about it here: http://steamcommunity.com/games/399270/announcements/detail/937114978617078218