Project Jupiter

OVERVIEW

Space shooter reminiscent of the retro 'asteroids' arcade game, but with some spicy fun twists and features. Strap into your starfighter to shoot down waves of invaders. Clever maneuvering with your tether or gravity wells will be key to success.

gameplay footage on reddit

FEATURES

• tether to swing around obstacles
• gravity wells can catch and hurt you or slingshot your way to victory
• multiplayer co-op supported by connecting two gamepads
• AI enemies for the true dog-fighting experience. sure beats shooting dumb asteroids
• homing missiles after level 10 to lock-in on the enemy before they  lock-in on you.

CONTROLS

Strongly recommended to use a gamepad. Keyboard is really only supported to make development/debugging easier.

• Left Thumbstick: move starfighter
• A button: shoot lasers
• B button: shoot missiles (after level 10)
• Right Trigger: shoot tether at nearest anchor
• Right Thumbstick: manual tether target direction

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM

Designed to be played on steam deck as primary console. Linux is natively supported. Windows build is also included but less well tested. Game ran fine on my ten year old laptop so performance should be acceptable on most systems.

FOCUS

The primary focus of development so far has been the gameplay loop. The core gameplay of dogfighting enemy starfighters should feel challenging, engaging, and fun. That's why AI enemies are used rather than shooting apart asteroids. Its also why sound and animation effects don't exist (yet).

CREDITS

Created by Macro and LightningMarshal on the bevy framework using rust. Took several weekends of personal time.

The opening menu soundtrack comes from a Commodore 64 game I played in my childhood while learning how to code.

The tether mechanic is inspired by the 'light-lance' from the book 'skyward' by Brandon Sanderson.