Bedlam (Vectrex)

I can’t help but feel a little bad for Bedlam. Almost every discussion I can find of the game online trends towards comparing it to Atari’s arcade hit Tempest, and while they do share some similarities like being space shooters with vector graphics, they play too differently to feel like Bedlam should always be in the shadow of the larger hit. The name does imply to me some of the Tempest comparisons were desired, but the actual gameplay seems quite unique.

 

Bedlam’s manual spins a fairly generic yarn about aliens invading your galaxy to colonize it themselves, although it does have a rather cute attempt to spin the action as far less violent than it seems. You aren’t destroying them with your anti-molecular cannon, you’re instead teleporting every ship you hit thousands of light years away. Identifying your weapon as a cannon at least helps explain one of the most important design decisions made in Bedlam, that being you actually have no way to move save to rotate in place.

Each level of Bedlam is comprised of different galactic sectors, these taking on different shapes that your cannon sits in the center of. These typically feature long spike-like protrusions to the play field, some looking like starbursts, a bird’s foot, and other simple shapes that favor long thin points. Enemies will spawn from the space inside these vertices, the little enemy spacecrafts floating towards your cannon since they can only deal damage by way of direct contact with it. While at first these sectors start off only really changing the amount of lanes you have to deal with, the second and third levels both introduce some complications to the gameplay. Later sectors will start to have their points shrink in towards the player, only receding if some shots are devoted to pushing the points back out. Then, rotation is added to the mix, the play field moving both the shrinking points and the enemies in the lanes around to make it harder to hit them.

 

The overlay for Bedlam is not very helpful, the colored starbursts meant to accentuate the different sector designs but not lining up with them very well. However, it does at least serve the universal purpose overlays have, the game instructing you about the use of each of your controller’s buttons. Your regular shot is a fairly fast projectile that can be held down, but once per sector, you can activate a screen-wiping blast. Usually these panic bombs are fairly limited in shooters, but granting one per sector encourages the player not to just sit on them until they’re absolutely needed. Since most of your other actions will be rotating in place to shoot incoming foes, possibly speeding up the process with one of the two Fast Rotate buttons, having the blast in your pocket keeps the action a bit more interesting than pointing at where the enemies are and holding down fire, although the later stages increase the difficulty to the point you’ll probably have to hold onto it as a desperation move rather than a way to get some quick and easy clears before a level wraps up.

Rotating shrinking starbursts and a once-per-level bomb are nifty ways to spice up this stationary shooter, but everything falls on the enemies to be interesting enough to make you want to keep playing. Rolled out in the same gradual way that the sector variations are, the game begins first by only tossing its softball Escort Ship enemies, these perhaps unsurprisingly taking on a starburst shape. These just drift towards your cannon gradually and are only challenging because they come in the highest numbers and draw focus away from the other foes. Astral Defenders join them in the first level, these almost football shaped starships coming to a stop whenever you face them and only moving towards you if the cannon is looking elsewhere. This is actually a fairly decent tactic, mainly because getting your cannon to point perfectly at one spot is a bit rough. When a foe is in close though there’s more wiggle room where your cannon can be looking to hit them, but if you try and pick off Defenders while they’re still far off in the lane, you might be letting enemies from other parts of the play field approach you freely. The first level is pretty easy because it only mixes these baddies in with the stationary level designs, but once the shrinking points are introduced and enemies can spawn in much closer than before, the game whips out its two other enemy types.

 

The cross-shaped Droids are perhaps the peskiest foes you’ll find, mostly because if you let them get too close they’ll start swirling around your center cannon to avoid being hit. It is possible to still peg them if you can time a shot well, but dealing with a Droid who is in the range where it starts its special movement will likely let the enemies in other lanes catch up. Later levels are almost always about trying not to let Droids get that close, but since you only have three lives total and extra lives come at fairly high point counts, these baddies will likely be why you don’t get too far past level three. You do get the option to start from Level 1, 2, or 3 when you start a new run, and a high score is technically the objective since after the third set of sectors the variations are less deliberate, new levels seeming to cause the Vectrex to struggle at times or speeding things up in what seems to be a bid to finally kill you off. Even a good run in Bedlam that goes deep will only take a few minutes though, the gameplay really not deep enough to support constant repeat runs even when you factor in the last enemy type: Colonist Transports. The transports are essentially just blockers, these drifting towards you like other enemies but they can’t be destroyed by laser fire. Instead, a shot sends them moving backwards, and while most levels end when every baddie is defeated, these can only be pushed back over and over until all other foes are dealt with. When they are the only ships remaining of the sector’s current wave they will disappear and the player will move on, but despite debuting last, this enemy type doesn’t really add the extra complication the game would need to make repeat plays of the later levels more exciting. Essentially, once you’ve left the early simple sectors and start facing the more challenging Droids, you’ve seen the most important elements of Bedlam, and these pieces can’t really hold your attention for long despite coming together in a fairly decent way.

THE VERDICT: Runs in Bedlam may go by a bit too fast even if you’re doing well, but the introduction is paced well enough that these short innings proceed at a decent rhythm. The core concepts are toyed with just enough that you are left with a game that’s somewhat interesting, but it doesn’t have the substance needed to motivate the player to keep coming back to it again and again, especially since going for the high score is a fairly linear chase. Things like having a free screen clear per sector and the way the play field changes make it more interesting, but this small stationary shooting game, while a decent choice when compared to some of the Vectrex’s library, is the type of simple amusement that is exhausted a little too easily and too quickly.

 

And so, I give Bedlam for the Vectrex…

An OKAY rating. While level progression is usually a good way of keeping a game fresh and varied, it might work a little against Bedlam here. While it does mean a run of Bedlam undergoes a consistent growth as you progress, Bedlam really wants you to stop playing once it has run out of new elements to introduce. By the time the Droids, shrinking rotating points, and transports are all working together, the difficulty has reached a point where you’re meant to meet your end soon. You can try to survive in spite of the pile on, but Bedlam doesn’t seem to want you to, instead hoping you’ll be content with its fairly enjoyable play from the start. Seeing if you can make it to the unofficial end point is a decent challenge even if any attempt to go after a high score inevitably requires pressing into the part of the game where the design settles into being off putting and hard instead of varied and properly difficult.

 

Bedlam mostly feels like its trying to do what it can with its fairly limited platform. The progression of enemy types and sector shapes are enough to elevate what could have rapidly become a far too repetitive experience, but spinning your cannon around in place soon becomes a bit too familiar all the same. The Vectrex is a system with a selection of fairly primitive and often shallow titles though, so it is at least worth a look if you intend to investigate this old system, but despite its unique approach to the space shooter genre, it mostly just relies on simple fun rather than something that truly warrants seeking out a Vectrex.