Post Void

I’ve never taken drugs. I know the dangers and side effects of that scene, but the true reason is I’m scared I’ll get hooked. I know what I’m like with a strong coffee, let alone taking something designed to mess up my noodle. This applies not only to the hardcore stuff but also to paracetamol. I’ll only take something if I can’t shift an illness after six days, and even then my wife has to practically force the pills into my body. So when someone says, “Oh, this is a drug trip,” I automatically assume it’s popping a couple of Tesco’s own-brand Ibuprofen to take something for a sniffle. But after seeing thirty seconds of Post Void I’m inclined to believe that this game is what it’s like to experience a drug trip.

The thought of experiencing something I would associate more with whatever lives in Rob Zombie’s head at any one time. Within the first 30 seconds of launching the game, YCJY Games hits you right in the face with Post Void’s strobe lighting and graphic images that depict a truly violent version of hell. As you power through the Void and break out of whatever purgatory you’re in, you have to avoid unholy creatures that are looking to end you, whilst also protecting your life force, which has been decanted into a cracked idol and is dripping on the carpet.

Before I carry on with the rest of the review, I will say that you can easily pick up Post Void from wherever you buy your digital games. I do, however, have to give a shout out to the work Super Rare Games has put into creating the physical edition. More specifically, the included art book forgoes the standard instruction manual. It showcases the warped ideas that YCJY Games incorporated into Post Void, including the story of how the game took shape. I don’t want to labour the point too much, but nothing beats having a tangible book included with your game, and while I understand the reasons we no longer enjoy instruction booklets, it’s a shame they’re a dying breed. 

Anyway, back to it. In terms of story, YCJY Games simply wraps a wafer thin plot to explain the gameplay and visual presentation of the game and it makes no bones about leaving you to have fun. The first-person shooter is a straightforward dungeon-crawling-roguelike that plops you into a procedurally generated level and tells you to get to the end before your health runs out, or an enemy steals your life force. When this happens, you’re kicked back to the start of the game where you dust yourself off and try again. Since I died a lot in Post Void, I was thankful that each run was as seamless in loading as continuing onto the next level. This arcade style of gameplay created a “one more go” approach that sucked me in for hours at a time.

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At A Glance

Post Void
Positives	+ Fast-paced shooter + Hyperviolent graphics + Tough gameplay
Negatives	– Barebones powerups – Headache inducing – Epically short
Overall	6/10
Played On	PS5
Also Available On	Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One
Find out about our scoring policy here.

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When I battled through the bright lights and striking visuals I was left looking at a game that was difficult to describe. At its core Post Void is a 2D game, built in a 3D space much like the original DOOM or Quake. Objects such as tables, chairs and bookcases are pressed to the wall, while the slew of two-dimensional creatures that stop at nothing to end your run. Enemies are designed in a similar 2-dimensional way and are surprisingly varied throughout the game. In the early levels, the creatures start off disgustingly enough with a humanoid shape with a mouth for a face, albeit dressed in a three-piece suit. As I progressed, different creatures started occupying the space, with eyeless gremlins that would bowl up to me and nibble my ankles, or a swarm of bee-sized helicopters that had gatling guns attached to them. Each one has different ways to be killed, but as time was a constraint, I hit them with a couple of shots to move them out of the way and just kept running.

The issues with Post Void aren’t so much the gameplay or the number of levels, but rather how the graphics are presented to you. Before the game reached its title screen, a huge epilepsy warning was plastered across the TV. Seasoned gamers have come to recognise such warnings with any video game, but this one carries some weight. The bright and flashy graphics hit me round the face like a steamroller steamrollering over a lumpy bit of tarmac. The amount of flashing in Post Void rivals a 1980s Japanese anime and even after just 10 minutes of play, I was rooting through the options to help calm down an oncoming headache. Thankfully YCJY Games have included several accessibility options to tone down the experience, although those more prone to such problems may still struggle with the game.

As everything is to the extreme with Post Void, you might be forgiven for thinking this is one game that keeps you from completing it. After all, if you don’t keep moving, you die. If you don’t kill enough enemies to fill your vessel, you die. The game might only have 11 levels that last anywhere up to three minutes each, but with only a few hits until the vessel is empty, there is a lot of restarting. This might seem like a problem but this is one of the fun things about Post Void because the first-person shooter restarts as quickly as if you were slotting another 50p in an arcade machine, ready to beat your score. The only real downside to the fast-paced shooter is that the randomised levels have an uncanny knack for spawning enemies at the start point, meaning a run could be over in three seconds or less. 

The best way to sum up Post Void in any meaningful way would be ‘if Quentin Tarantino had somehow developed Doom instead of directing films’. The game has all the hallmarks of the director’s early works; it’s ultra-violent, hyper visceral and littered with barefoot baddies in sharp suits. The arcade style of short, sweet and brutal gameplay, rather than producing a lengthy campaign is a bold choice, and while your mileage may vary, I felt Post Void was the perfect bite-sized shooter that offered up a lot of fun despite its short runtime. The gameplay is engaging and snappy enough to the point I didn’t care about the game only being an hour long, or the repetitive soundtrack pumping in my ears like a German discotech. All I wanted to do was run through the myriad of creatures with a shotgun and make it as far as possible before being sent back to the beginning. Even now I can feel myself being drawn back for just one more hop through Post Void’s grotesque world…

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