Belt Nine

Cross the Belt. See how far you get.

You used to work for the corps. Now you're running from them, in a ship that isn't yours, down a wormhole chain everyone calls the Belt. Belt Nine is a forward-scrolling arcade shooter in the spirit of Zanac, drawn entirely in lines of neon light on black.

The ship flies on rails. You slide it across the lane, push it forward or ease it back, and shoot whatever comes down at you. There are no menus to get through, no tutorial and no cutscenes. You press a button and the run starts.

One run, no end

• Endless. Each stage leads straight into the next, with no loading screens and no last stage. The run lasts until your hull gives out.

• One life. There are no checkpoints. When you die you start again from the very beginning with no points and no power-ups.

• It keeps getting harder. The deeper you go, the more fighters, bigger squadrons and stranger wildlife come at you, and the heat never stops rising.

• Speed pays. Your score is multiplied by how fast you're flying. Hold the turbo, thread the gaps and watch the multiplier climb.

Power-ups that stack

Twin guns, spread shot, ricochet, homing, piercer, chain lightning, shield, sidestep, magnet, rapid fire, double points, greed, and a bunch more... Pick up the same one again and it stacks. Every level you add shows on your hull, so a lucky ship ends up covered in cannon pods, orbiting sparks, halos and ghost copies of itself.

Things that should not live in space

The Belt has its own ecology. Whale pods swim through the lane. Leviathans big enough to swallow them come in at an angle, mouths open. Hullhuggers (baby krakens) leap onto your ship and eat your power-ups until you swerve hard enough to shake them off. Krakens, elder krakens, mimics and angels that don't like eye contact are out there too.

Something big at the end of every level

At the end of every level the scroll brakes to a halt and something comes for you: a cruiser and its escort, a destroyer, a kraken, an elder kraken, a mimic that chews, a moon-sized battle station, or seraphims.

Nobody goes anywhere until one of you is gone.