Nelo Explodes With Exhilarating Looking Gameplay

With its fast-paced, explosive gameplay and dark, futuristic setting Nelo may not initially appear to be the most original premise but it immediately sets itself apart from 99% of the usual Kickstarter campaigns merely by looking so good.

Primarily a third person action shooter, the main innovation of Nelo is the ability to switch to a top down shooter at the press of a button – useful when getting swarmed by enemies at close quarters. Elsewhere developer Magic & Mirrors seems set on cramming in as many aspects from popular shooters as possible – the ambition is admirable but I am concerned that it may be too much to implement for a November 2016 release, although the presence of a playable demo is very promising.

Nelo is the debut title from developer Magic & Mirrors and the fact it looks so professional is impressive, and made doubly so when you realise they consist of only two developers and a composer. Hard work and talent clearly count for a lot here but frustratingly the Kickstarter page itself could have done with further proof-reading as there are numerous errors – a real personal bugbear of mine.

Nitpicking aside, Nelo does look great running at a frenetic speed using Unreal Engine 4. Good enough in fact for Epic Games to award Magic & Mirrors a $20,000 grant following the March 2015 GDC event and this show of faith from a major developer should be enough for Nelo to acquire the modest $25,000 target they’re looking for on Kickstarter – despite the surprising absence of publicity.

The developers may come to rue their lack of self-promotion if Nelo doesn’t reach many of its stretch goals but it will be their own fault with a lack of activity on social media since receiving their grant last year, and a website only having been set up in the last couple of months.

Track the progress of the Nelo Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.