Infinite Revolution (Part 1)

Should the stars go out too?

Infinite Revolution is a game by Gwendolyn Clark . It benefited from a crowdfunding campaign. We have received a review copy of the game.

1. Every Individual Component Is The Best

In our analysis, we consider every individual artistic element of a game the best; we don’t find bad or good useful. So, the Split/Party framework assumes it is the best art, best layout, best writing, best design. This is an acknowledgment that nobody makes “bad” art on purpose; any given element is the best art that could have been produced at that point, restricted by its material conditions and constraints of time and effort. This is also because saying something is good/bad art is the most useless criticism that can be given. In practical terms, this section is for things we will not touch on the review but merit acknowledgment.

Lhuzie

An outstanding achievement, Infinite Revolution is just magical. With a deeply under-evaluated crowdfunding campaign, we get one of the best-designed games of 2025 — probably only beaten by Zephyr in my estimation — it is also one of the most beautiful — probably only beaten by Zephyr in my estimation.

Excellent layout, cohesive artistic direction; every choice of art and color evokes the themes of light, darkness, hope, and furious space action. Excellence in every aspect, impossible art at these rates.

Brad

A gorgeous art piece, with the kind of breathtaking layout you can only imagine. The game is beautiful and sharp, but never dangerous to hold. I can only say that as I was reading it, people kept peering over my shoulder and oooh-ing and aaah-ing.

The layout? Sensible. The Art Direction? A fantastic expression of the theme of light in the darkness. I can’t find a single thing to nettle or needle, including a sensible table of contents.

2. Meet The Game At The Level It Is At

Each game comes with certain expectations and tone. To properly break it down, we have to meet the game at the level it is: not lament its choice of premise and wish it was something else, nor resent for not conforming with our politics, not letting “missed opportunities” stand in our way of applying the critical framework relentlessly. It also includes not working with the game as marketed or how it exists in our desires, but as it is.

Lhuzie

Infinite Revolution does not go deep into safety and conform, disclosing its themes but having no assumptions about how to tackle them — but laying on the table what the game will involve. Infinite Revolution game is about dreams, hopes, and being larger than life. It is also about the inevitability of death, loss, forgetting, and violence. It is still a war story — albeit one with almost abstract, cosmic enemies and stakes.

Brad

Infinite Revolution wears its identity as a shining armor, and doesn’t really concern itself with how you will make its themes occur, instead trusting on design and form to make sure you really get the gist. To be honest, I think it succeeds.

3. Identify What The Game Says It Is About

Games are about things. Usually. Mostly. That is often the same thing they market themselves as. This often means to establish the relationship of the game with systems, mechanical frameworks, genre, etc. This is how games establish exceptions about the nature of play and establish a common space for creation.

Lhuzie

You are a revolver, a human bound to a star-traveling drive that resonates with alien energies. You can never stop, you can never slow down., you can only keep revolving forward.

It replaced your heart, and your hopes, fears, and dreams power it. Human, drive and the threat to all form a triangle, locked into a mythic struggle for the universe.

In a universe where the stars themselves have gone out, you have to shine brighter. Fight the forces of entropy and keep spinning — until you have burned through all you are.

Brad

The Revolvers were pathfinders, heroes of the great civilization of Prima Sol, Their hearts replaced with beating turbines of limitless energy. They cut a glittering future for colony cruisers and oversaw the construction of V-Gates that made faster-than-light travel the future.

Now hundreds of years later, paracasual entities pour from somewhere else and devour the light of stars, they prevent the workings of the V-Gates, and you must turn your star heart to drive them back.

4. Uncover What The Game Is REALLY About

What the game says it is about is not always what the game is about. This is where we look at all the weird interactions, examining the system that game creates, how the way mechanics interact with the text and art, how it exists in a given context, how well parts flow together or get in the way. This creates a much richer environment that the original design could ever imagine once a game hits the table.

Lhuzie

I never understood the instinct of some designers and players to make TTRPGs emulate video games. Been burned up on the concept from the decades of “way too literal” adaptations that try to work too much like a computer program but the math have to be done at the table; and the other hard of the swing, of the superficial drawing of the aesthetics

While there a game we have covered quite close to video games that worked for me was Kill Him Faster, there is a giant in doing it successfully that I cannot avoid: Lumen. I never talked much about it, because there is not much to be said. I have played and designed in Lumen. It is amazing at capturing in a different medium the magic and dynamics of looter shooters, but… I don't get why. The design and engine is serviceable, but does not do anything unique, something that justifies prepping, gathering multiple people, and using your collaborative cooperative storytelling to emulate your favourite looter shooter — not when you can just fire that one up. So it became something that I appreciate, have nothing but positive things to say, but “don't get” why the looter shooter TTRPG and its many iterations is a thing.

My beloved partner, Anemone, loves looter shooters. And has played zir share of Lumen-likes. So ze was actually to turn my frustration back and me and explain what I am missing.

Looter shooters are like TTRPGs, something that is going to be mostly miserable if you just hit random queues. In both, they really become worth playing when you have a small consistent group that you can play with. They share many of the same positives, so it makes sense that people seeking that experience play games that have learned the right lesson from looter shooters.

So, why did I took this detour before going back to Infinite Revolution?

Infinite Revolution has clearly taken a lot of inspiration from Lumen and from looter shooters but… the actual playing of the game has a quite unique energy. An energy, the closest I ever felt was when playing bullet hell games. You will get when you start overlaying weapon patterning.

Infinite Revolution is a game about capturing the frenetic energy of a bullet hell and allowing those that do not play video games to experience it. Add the patterns for Drives, being luminous girls of light darting through space and the character-specific theme song? Infinite Revolution may be the purest translation of Touhou to the artform of cooperative collaborative storytelling.

Brad

In a similar spin, I love certain looter shooters, having played a fair bit of Bungie’s big light-themed one that I can feel in here. But I think that Infinite Revolution wears its clearest theme on its broadest shoulders. That Humanity can do anything.

The Revolvers are humans gifted with infinite power, who, even in this brutal war against an enemy who sees to unmake all that is, still take time to rest on Cradle. The Revolvers have the power of starship powerplants resting in their chests, and yet they are still people first and foremost. They went out into the inky black forever of space and guided humans to a future, and now they have simply to step out and drive back the darkness once more.

Spin on.

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