Some games make perfect sense when you look at them. A quick glance is all that it takes to cue the realization of “Oh, I get it”, and that certainly makes it much easier to show off. Scintillatron 4096 is not that game but that just means it’s in good company with the arcade heritage it draws from. You’re a little ball with precision eight-way shooting wandering an arena getting more cramped as color-coded enemies show up with unpredictable new behaviors, and the best way to clear them out isn’t with a barrage of firepower but rather carefully thinning the herd to keep the combo alive. Score and survival are very different things, and while mindlessly blasting is unquestionably fun it won’t earn a spot on the leaderboards. You’ll need to pick off enemies of a set color before moving on to the next to keep the combo counter growing, but it’s hard to earn a high score when being overly meticulous in the target selection gets you killed. Scintillatron 4096 is aiming to be a classic-style twin stick shooter with deep scoring strategies plus all the colors and particles it can pump onto the screen, and if its launch trailer takes a bit of deciphering it’s also bright and pyrotechnic, which is exactly what it needs to be.

Scintillatron 4096 is coming out on PS4 and Vita on December 18. Give the trailer below a look and enjoy the warm glow of nostalgia from the Gorf/Wizard of Wor voice.