Developer: Liquid Bit LLC / BumbleBear Games | Publisher: Liquid Bit LLC || Overall: 8.0/10

Overview:

Killer Queen Black is a competitive team vs team platformer with multiple paths to victory. Matches typically take about five minutes or so, but can get pretty intense. Since there are many ways to win, you have to keep your eye on very diverse things happening at any given time, which brings up a major strategic advantage for just being aware of what is happening.

The game more or less reminds me of the old Mario arcade game except much more complex. There’s matchmaking and plenty of different maps to play which keeps things fresh.

Graphics:

The graphics are very nice. The whole theme of anthropomorphic flying insects and hives and stuff is a pretty unique one. It is interesting how there are different ways to evolve the Worker characters, so you’re not exactly pigeon-holed into any one role unless you are the Queen, which primarily takes care of combat. Everything is pretty simple to understand from a visual aspect.

Sound:

The sound is well designed. There’s a metal/rock guitar riff that constantly plays whenever a match ends to amp up the energy.

Gameplay:

Three paths to victory are present. Military, Economic, and Snail. Military Victory occurs when you kill the opposing Queen three times. Economic Victory occurs when you collect enough berries (placed at different nodes on the map) and place them into your hive. Snail Victory occurs when you ride a slow snail to your team’s finish line. All of these objectives are occurring at the same time, and if you are focusing on an Economic Victory you may not be aware or have enough time to counteract a Snail/Military Victory.

Voice chat can be important to coordinate as well, but is probably not really needed unless you intend on using the ranking system.

Crappiest Part:

There’s not that much in the way of variety or progression once you get the idea of the game down. As a result you probably don’t want to play for more than thirty minutes at any given time. The ranking system is present, but its not like you’re unlocking cosmetics or leveling up or even getting anything for ranking up other than bragging rights. It seems like an odd game to want to get serious about, as a result.

Conclusion:

Killer Queen Black is a well-designed competitive team game with a unique theme. It isn’t a bad title to roll out if you’ve got a couple of friends over. However, I wouldn’t expect to get more than a couple of hours of game time in by yourself unless you really feel like making your mark on the community for some strange reason.