About This Game

Cosmic Destroyer is a high-intensity horizontal SHMUP with a grappling hook that can grab and throw enemies and objects - even deflecting enemy projectiles.

• Built for precision, speed and high stakes action. Play single player or local Co-Op!

• Use your Grappling Hook to grab enemies and objects, leverage enemy abilities, and throw them for big damage.

• Blast through tight, twisting routes in handcrafted stages built on curves and branching paths.

• Outmaneuver swarms of enemies, smash into fortified bases, and chase down wily bosses with combat focused on intensity, clarity, and tight controls.

• Multiple ships, each with unique Primary weapons.

• Leaderboards built upon 1CC / first credit. Training mode with unlimited continues and maxed-out ship upgrades to hone your skills.

Cosmic Destroyer is hand-crafted for players who crave tight controls, pure action, and the hair-raising rush of a perfectly timed dodge.  This is an intense, challenging and rewarding STG experience!

Check out the gameplay demo which includes the first two stages of the game!

Please Note: You can send public feedback to CoffeeMakerGames on Bluesky, send any bug or more detailed feedback through the Feedback button on the main menu.

Gameplay

Cosmic Destroyer's core mechanics include the grappling hook, frenetic ship battles, with weapon power-ups, options with trailing or spinning modes, and screen-clearing bombs.

The Prototype L2-B Ship excels at clearing out lots of small enemies quickly, with its Refract Laser bouncing off enemies and objects.

What can you Grapple?

Players can use their Grappling Hook to grab small enemies and objects found in the stage or looted from the debris of their enemies and use them to get an edge. This Includes...

• Mountable weapons like the Heavy Mining Laser and Vulcan Cannon

  • Weapons fire along with the ship's primary weapons - generally while holding the main shot (focus mode)

• Temporary grabbable objects from the world like antennae, small asteroids and other debris can be grabbed, used to block projectiles, and rammed into or thrown into enemies for big damage!

• Small Enemies can be grabbed and many of these enemies  fire at nearby enemies or provide bonuses to the player like speed boosts.

Dynamic Movement in Spline-based Stages

Stages are built along splines which allow for the stage to bend, traversing around or even through asteroid caves and inside large installations. This also provides an opportunity for stages to have alternate paths and secrets to discover.

Controls have been streamlined so the player can focus on survival and destroying everything in their path. As many actions as possible mapped to as few buttons as possible. Currently Cosmic Destroyer uses three buttons: (plus a emulated "hardware auto-fire"):

• Shot - fires a Wide Shot or a Focused Shot, while adjusting the player's speed.

  • Tapping the button fires a Wide Shot which is weaker, but allows the player to move at full speed.

  • Holding the Shot button down fires a Focused Shot that is more powerful, and also slows the player's movement speed.

  • Focused and Wide shot also apply to any Options or Mounted Items, which will fire differently based on these fire modes. With these mechanics the player can dodge more effectively, and use appropriate weapon firing to fit the situation - all on one button.

• Grappling Hook & Throw - pick up a Mountable Item from the world and attach it to your ship, or detach your currently equipped item.

  • If you already have a special weapon held, they will be swapped. This gives the player the choice to use or avoid items depending on their play style.

  • If holding an an enemy or object, pressing this Action button will throw it. The button can be held for up to one second, charging the throw up for more speed and damage.

• Special Attack / Bomb - release your ship's special attack. While this attack is active all damage to the player is nullified. Bombs will wipe all bullets from the screen, and each bullet canceled is scored.

Full Control Mapping and Supported Controllers

• Arcade Controllers via gamepad or keyboard translation

• PS 4/5 and Xbox 360/Series Gamepads

• Keyboard

• Mouse (can be used for actions, not movement)

Every effort has been made to continue to support fundamental features which STG/SHMUP fans love. This includes, (though not limited to):

• Wide Shot and Focus Shot all on one button, with speed change - focus shot has a slower movement speed.

• Option Drones can cancel bullets and damage enemies, helping savvy players prevent damage in scenarios and increase their score even further. Options which have absorbed bullets do more damage for a short period of time.
  

• Options do damage to enemies, hovering over boss cores at point blank range adds significant damage.

• Arcade mode built around 1CC - Play with limited continues in arcade mode where continuing wipes out your 1CC leaderboard scoring chance, this mode ships generally have 2 hits to die.

• Coming soon - hard mode where one hit kills with no continues. These official modes will have Top Destroyers high score list, leader boards that will be part of the official release. Local leader boards have already been implemented for the demo version.

• Practice mode - unlimited continues, full power, unlimited bombs on short cool down. In this mode you can start anywhere on any stage and practice sections and bosses.

• Last but not least, the ships Bomb/Hyper saves the player if activated just shortly after starting to die. An audible percussive explosion indicates the timing, if the Special button is pressed in time, the player is saved.

  

  More features are being considered, which will be evaluated based on community interest.

Scoring and Rewards

Players rack up a big score by accumulating hits to raise their multiplier. The hit counter drains over time until the next hit is registered. This multiplier applies bonuses to nearly all scoring in the game, Here are some great ways to score:

• Keep your hit multiplier up at all times by seeking out objects to hit and destroy.

• Destroying enemies and destructible objects in the world will often drop score pickups.

• Waves of enemies drop a valuable score pickups. At higher multiplier tiers, additional rewards such as power ups, bombs, options are dropped. This can even include additional player lives in extreme cases.

• Collecting power-ups of any kind when the category of power-ups is at it's maximum level.

• Grazing bullets or deflecting with the Grappling Hook scores bullet cancel points which can be hyper effective at scoring as well as devastating enemies at close range.

Modern Quality of Life features

Along with FM generated sound effects, pickup announcements, and a Synthwave soundtrack, you will find graphics options to embrace the arcade feel. Scanline filters with chromatic aberration can be customized to fit the emulated monitor style you want. Whether its a slightly blurred, over-bright old CRT or the crisp and clean flat "t-tron" look.