FLESH NAVY
FLESH NAVY is a minimalist and (potentially) brutal shoot’em up built in PICO-8.
An organic fleet is closing in.
It learns. You adapt.
Or you don't.
Controls:
- X to shoot
- Hold C to focus (slow down and move precisely)
- Arrow keys to move
FLESH NAVY takes a “souls-like” approach to the SHMUP genre. Difficulty comes from observation, learning, and fair but demanding encounters, not pure chaos.
I'm grateful to everyone who played and shared feedback during the playtest phase.
It directly shaped this version of my first game project.
More updates and improvements will come over time.
Thank you very much to everyone who takes the time to try it.
I used Archie Game Dev's PICO-8 template for the game cover.
Development log
- playtest completed / thank you!34 days ago
- playtest update 03 / audio & visual feedback36 days ago
- playtest update 02 / pacing & tempo37 days ago
- playtest update 01 / game-over screen47 days ago
Comments
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Because every enemy has high health and you can only shoot in one direction, the window you can reasonably kill an enemy closes quickly, and you are discouraged from engaging with most of them; the most efficient strategy to beat a wave becomes selecting one enemy to destroy so you can loop around behind the enemy lines.
Once you do that, it's really easy to dodge enemy attacks, and at that point you just kinda twiddle your thumbs waiting for the next wave. Against most waves, you don't even need to kill any enemies to progress if you time your dodges well. The only waves you *must* shoot to pass are waves with silver eye enemies or a wave that is purely made up of the immobile flesh globs.If this is to be a shmup, shooting enemies should be essential to the gameplay. I think the game would be a lot more engaging if the enemies remained on screen until they were all killed (maybe reversing direction when they reach the edge of the screen), and if the player character could flip around to blast enemies (pressing "Z" to flip vertically or something).
That said, the controls feel great, the enemy designs are super cool, and I think you have a great variety of enemy attacks. It's also cool that enemy path movements are telegraphed and you can see which enemies will appear in the next wave.
Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback, this is really helpful.
You're absolutely right that the current optimal strategy often seems to lean toward circling behind enemies, focusing on a single target, and prioritizing dodging over shooting. That’s something I’m starting to see in other feedback as well, and it’s not fully aligned with what I want the game to encourage.
My intention is for shooting to be meaningful and for positioning decisions to matter, not for passive survival to be the dominant strategy.
I’m not sure yet about keeping waves on screen until everything is destroyed, but I do agree that I need to make shooting more essential. I’ll experiment with adjustments and see what improves the pacing without breaking the overall feel.
Also really glad to hear the telegraphed attacks and the enemy design and variety worked well for you.
Thanks again for taking the time to write this!
Of course, I'm glad it's helpful to you. :) And yeah, everything I said is merely a suggestion. There's lots of possible solutions to explore: best of luck finding one that works with your vision! Thanks for sharing this, can't wait to see where you go with this project. :)
Hey, great work on this!
I’ve been playing on controller — just mentioning it in case others don’t realize it’s supported.
The enemy attacks were pretty clear to me. I felt like most of my deaths were when trying to squeeze in one more kill, or a silly mistake. It felt pretty challenging, died a lot, but didn't hit me as unfair at all.
It was fun to be scared of a new enemy, then learning to deal with it. The respawn mechanic helped a lot on that, kept me more engaged knowing i get to keep my progress but also have to try again the current "chapter".
(I couldn't keep breathing)
One thing I noticed is that there can be some downtime when the last enemy/enemies move out of reach and I can’t engage with them anymore. In those moments I kind of just wanted to move on. That said, I understand that changing this might affect more complex waves where enemies reposition, so I’m not sure what the best solution would be.
I really like the art, sound effects and visual effects feedback, feels polished already.
I hope you plan to publish on PICO-8 SPLORE, as it makes it easy to get on a handheld, for example, which i like to do myself, really recommend it!
Phew, such a long comment, words stack up faster than those shotgun bullets.
Keep it up!
Thanks a lot for taking the time to write such a detailed comment, I really appreciate it.
And thanks a lot for the kind words about the art, sound effects and visual feedback, I’m really happy that part comes across well.
Also good to know about the controller support, I had no clue it worked!
I'm glad that the deaths felt fair and that learning new enemies worked as intended; that’s exactly what I’m aiming for. The respawn “chapter” structure was meant to keep that learning loop engaging, so it’s great to hear it worked for you.
The downtime you mentioned when the last enemies move out of reach is a very good point. I’ve noticed similar situations and I agree it can break the pacing. I’ll think about how I can change this.
And yes, I do plan to publish on SPLORE! Once I have a more polished version of the gameplay.
Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback, it really helps!
I’m not very good at this game, but it’s fun! I like the telegraphed attacks. I imagine that’s hard to do with so few pixels but it was clear when something was about to come at me. Nice work! Looking forward to seeing how you update it
Thank you for trying it, I'm glad you had fun!
I'm happy that the telegraphed attacks felt clear. I'm working on improving the animations and sounds for them.