BeatSlayer

BeatSlayer is a top-down rhythm roguelite in the bullet-heaven style. You fly a small ship through a swarm of neon shapes while the music plays, and everything on screen moves to that music: enemies spawn on the beat, every drop sends in a new wave, and your weapons fire in time with the track. You steer and dash. Your arsenal does the shooting.

210 encounters, 417 relics

Between the songs, the run plays out in a cyberpunk city where sound is currency and everyone runs on after-market chrome. A vending machine that only takes payment in rhythm. A church bell whose every sixth toll is a sponsored ad. A black hole working the door of the last club in orbit. There are 210 encounters, each with its own character or scene, and each one pays out relics of its own, every one with its own effects and its own price. Pay in health, take a curse, flip a coin, fight for it, or win one of 24 minigames: dodge beams on a grid, crack ICE, ride a fader, scratch a turntable, surf a crowd.

And every stage you clear unlocks a relic for good. There are 417 to collect, and each one you unlock joins the relic picks after every stage, in this run and every run after.

How it plays

• Move with WASD, the arrow keys or a gamepad's left stick. Your weapons aim and fire on their own, each on its own rhythm.
  
• Dash through danger with Space. A dash on the beat recovers faster.
  
• Kills charge your Overdrive, a short burst of extra damage. Call it with E right on the downbeat and it hits harder still, with an extra shockwave.
  
• Each song is one stage. Survive to the last bar and you move on.

Build an arsenal

Upgrades drop during every song, and each one deals you a choice of cards: a new weapon, a level for one you already carry, or a stat. There are 53 weapons and each levels up to 8. Bring two of them to level 7 and they fuse into a single new weapon, mid-song, in a burst of light. There are 1,378 fusions to find.

A three-act run

The campaign is a map of branching routes. Choose a path and you are locked onto it for a while. Along the way: songs, elites, encounters, campfires, treasure, survival and dodge trials, and a boss at the end of every act. Your health, weapons and relics carry from song to song. Clear a stage and it unlocks a relic for your collection, then pick one of three: the original 25 plus every relic you have unlocked. Some encounters leave a curse behind.

Four ships, four deals

Every ship flies differently and carries its own passive:

• An all-rounder that sends out a pulse every fourth beat, and another whenever you dash on the beat.
  
• A slow, armored juggernaut that plants armor plates and heavy shockwaves when it stands still.
  
• A fragile speedster with three blades orbiting the hull.
  
• A heavy hitter that fires slowly, whose kills explode and set off chain reactions.

Before the first song a boombox with legs offers four starting deals, each a big boost with a real price: double damage for a tenth of your health, a legendary relic for two curses, a borrowed big gun at half health, or an overclocked ship that runs up a debt.

After the campaign

Beat the campaign to unlock Endless: songs back to back, each tougher than the last, with a weekly setlist and a leaderboard of your best runs.

• 29 songs, three acts, a boss for each act
  
• 210 encounters, 24 minigames, 417 relics to unlock
  
• Chill, Normal and Hard
  
• Keyboard and mouse, with gamepad support in play