‘AirKnight’ Mixes SHMUP With Voxels and Goes to Town This September

While this marks the ninth game from the one-man studio known as RetroSouls, I’m guilty of having only played his incredible world spinning puzzle platformer 8-Bit Night. And speaking of, it’s actually free for 48 hours in celebration of the AirKnight announcement, so do grab it. Just remember to come back here for details on his upcoming voxel-based SHMUP.

So, AirKnight. A voxel-based SHMUP, two of my favorite things mixed together with (hopefully) positive results – not all crazy ideas are worth exploring, after all! I do like the thought of everything being destructible down to the last voxel, though. Most SHMUPs tend to focus purely on taking down hostile aircraft and little else, so this’ll definitely be a breath of fresh air.

I’m not entirely sure exactly how the game will play, as the details are incredibly scarce at this point, outside of potential platform availability and a release window. So in case you didn’t catch it in the title, RetroSouls is aiming for September 2013, though supporters of the $5 alpha tier will be able to get their hands on such a build as early as July. What? Alpha tier? Supporters? Oh right, forgot to mention his Indiegogo campaign!

Game uses my own voxel engine called “VoxyEngine”. It’s written with C# + XNA, so i can easy port it to many platforms using MonoGame.

At the time of writing, he’s managed to raise $5 of $5000, and even if the funding fails AirKnight will still see the light of day. Anything short of the goal means it will be Windows only though, but if the goal is reached, Linux will be added, and every $1000 beyond that’ll get the game on even more platforms. Those numbers look pretty solid to me, and at $10000 he’ll even make the engine open source! The road from $5 to $10000 is a long one though…

Head over to Indiegogo for more details on the project and keep those fingers crossed for a successful campaign, along with a stretch goal or two so Android and Mac users will also get a chance to experience AirKnight.