Phobos Down postmortem

A bit over three months has passed since the Phobos Down release, so it's a good time for a look back.

The plan

I set out to make a perfect twin-stick shooter for myself. Something with strict a focus on satisfying shooting action with minimal distractions. As an older gamer with slow reflexes, I also wanted to make it relatively slow-paced so that I'd have time to plan ahead and strategize instead of continuously struggling to avoid failure. Visually, I wanted it to be minimal and as clear as possible.

Technical decisions made in the very beginning:

• Use procedural generation for missions and game content. Set up things so that newly added content is automatically taken into use without having to manually modify all existing content. In practice, this means that all enemies, devices, and other items have a set of parameters that define when and where they can appear, and the algorithm handles the rest.

• Use minimal ultra-low-poly art style with procedural animation because that is something I can do well enough myself.

• Use strict color coding to make things as readable as possible on screen.

• Restrict user inputs to two analog joysticks with one digital button on each. The idea was to keep things simple and leave the door open for ports to various limited platforms like touchscreen devices.

• Utilize the destructible height map terrain that I had created earlier.

​As usual, I didn't make any detailed game design upfront. I had a rough game idea written down and a list of initial tasks the needed to be done. I added more tasks on the list as the project went on and tried to keep the list in priority order so that the most important things got implemented first.

The progress

Here are some screenshots over the years that show the development progress:

The initial scope for the project was very tight, as I only wanted to implement the most essential features. I was hoping to finish the game in a year. It took four years, just like my previous game. I see a pattern here.

I could have called it ready almost a year earlier, but I wanted to keep polishing it and adding the last minor details. In the end, I didn't have to cut any meaningful content.

I had always planned to support various platforms and during the development I had implemented an experimental touchscreen control, so a mobile version was almost there already. After the PC version release, I thought about making a free mobile version as a promotional tool and another chance to get some people playing the game. Since Google forced me to do another zero-change update to Polychoron on Google Play, I decided to release a quickly made mobile version of Phobos Down too. I'm not sure if this was a good idea, because now I have to maintain that version too.

The good

Godot engine is great, and building a game in it is really fun. I will definitely stick with this game engine. Now that this project is done, I can finally upgrade to the latest version.

Building the physical arcade cabinet was a good idea. Taking it to local demo events got a lot of attention, and I got to see people playing it live. This was the best source of actual gameplay feedback. The arcade cabinet has been publicly available in NOOB arcade bar in Tampere since the release, and currently more people are playing it than the PC versions combined. It also brings a tiny bit of traffic to the game pages.

The bad

Promoting a hobbyist game without some insane hook is hopeless. I feel like all the time and effort spent on it was wasted. I guess the reason is simple: Phobos Down looks quite generic, and there are literally thousands of better looking and more interesting games competing for the attention. I don't really know what to do differently in the future. Perhaps I'll just stop trying. After all, I make games for fun, and marketing and promotional work is very much not fun. I will keep posting about the development progress on social media, but that's it.

Steam Early Access was not worth the trouble. During ten months in Early Access, I got one feedback post, and that was from a person already giving a lot of valuable feedback on Itch.io. I will keep my future games on Itch.io during development, and if they somehow get popular there, set up a Steam page but skip the Early Access.

Final thoughts

At the moment, I have mixed feelings about this project. I'm very happy with the game itself. The core gameplay is fun and exactly the way I envisioned it. My only real financial goal was met: I earned back the $100 Steam fee. However, I can't help feeling disappointed with how the game got immediately lost in the sea of thousands of other games. Of course, that was no surprise, because there never were more than a handful of people really excited about the game, and Steam wishlist count at launch was very low.

In the end, the most important thing is that Phobos Down is now ready! I will continue to maintain it and fix bugs but I'm not working on any new features.

Phobos Down is currently available at 30% discount during the Steam Spring Sale. Also on Itch.io.

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Posted on 2026-03-19

Phobos Down is now out on Google Play

Nobody asked for this but I decided to do it anyway: Phobos Down is now available as a mobile version on Google Play!

Oh, and it is completely FREE! The desktop version remains paid but I think the price is very reasonable. It will also be available at -25% discount during the next seven days.

The reasoning behind this is that I hate ads so much that I refuse to litter my games with those and nobody pays an upfront price on a mobile game these days. So I'm hoping that this will drive a few players to buy the desktop version of the game. After all, playing on Steam Deck or on a desktop PC provides the best experience.

The game content is exactly the same as in the PC version with touch screen controls added and UIs tuned to be readable on a small screen. Weekly challenges and high scores are also shared with the PC version.

You can install the game from Google Play store. Desktop version is available on Steam and Itch.io as usual:

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Posted on 2026-02-07

Phobos Down 1.0.0 released

The day has come: Phobos Down is finally ready!

Phobos Down has been in slow development for four years since the first prototype. Most of that time, there has a been playable alpha or beta version available, first on Itch.io only, later on Steam Early Access as well. I did not get as much feedback as I had hoped but the feedback I got was constructive and helped shape the game into what it is today.

The original idea was to take all the features I liked in existing twin stick shooter games and leave out everything that I felt was unnecessary interruptions to the action. I tried to make an ideal twin stick shooter for myself, a middle-aged gamer with limited time, who enjoys twin stick shooters but can't keep up with the most hectic bullet hell games, and wants to enjoy more strategic shooting action without constant panic and struggle to survive.

During these four years I also upgraded my old Hyper Ultra Astronautics arcade cabinet to run Phobos Down. I'm hoping to get this arcade cabinet publicly playable again somewhere in Tampere during December.

This update does more than just bumps the version number. Settings menu has been overhauled and some requested settings, like master volume control, has been added there. Some new enemy variants have been also added, including a new boss enemy that launches bombs in patterns around the player.

Here are all the changes since the last beta version:

• Fixed a bug in enemy obstacle avoidance that made them push too hard against obstacles.
• Added evasive movement on hit to most smaller enemies.
• Added medium sized crawler enemy variant.
• Added smaller and larger variants of bomb launching crawler enemies.
• Fixed logged errors on attempting to set achievements in non-Steam game version.
• Split settings menu into gameplay and video+audio settings.
• Added audio master volume control in settings.
• Hide controller guides while mission info is shown.
• Fixed crawler enemy walk animation speed not scaling with body size.
• Added new bomb pattern launching boss enemy.
• Adjusted boss enemy appearing probabilities.
• Fixed duplicate vertices in some enemy models.
• Added option to disable termination streak counter labels.

As for the future, I will continue to fix bugs and possibly add some more content. After all, I still have quite a few ideas for new enemies and gear. I have done some testing with a mobile version for Android and it is technically feasible but I'm not sure if it would be worth the trouble.

Phobos Down is now available on Itch.io and Steam.

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Posted on 2025-12-08

Phobos Down 0.1.1 beta released

This update to Phobos Down focuses mostly on improving in-game instructions and guides, especially regarding high scores.

Score calculation from kill events (multiple termination, termination streaks) has been changed. Now each additional kill will always increase the score bonus. Together with some other tweaks, this makes earning score slightly easier than before. Kill streak progression and final score bonus is now visualized with an indicator at the location of the kill.

Message texts have been shortened and their timing adjusted so that player sees the instruction texts at the right time and has more time to read them. An additional direction indicator has been added that guides player toward the most important items like the extraction zone at the and of mission or to medical stations when badly hurt.

There are also many minor visual improvements like added "juice" to score indicator, new plant variants, adjusted dynamic lights, animated extraction zone marker and added progress bar while compiling shaders.

And last but not least, this update adds Steam achievements.

Here are all the changes since the last alpha version:

• Added instruction texts for indicators in control guide overlay.
• Added blinking animation to extraction zone marker.
• Adjusted mission end message timings.
• Show "enter extraction zone" message for a much longer time.
• Only apply 50% of the damage from weapons/devices to containers and the player itself.
• Improved minefield device description and shortened the activation delay.
• Calculate kill score bonuses as multiples of kill count instead of fixed numbers.
• Added visual kill streak progress indicator.
• Fixed two simultaneous kills at the start of a kill streak resetting the streak.
• Improved score related sound effects.
• Added animations to score and equipment level indicators.
• Added weapon UI opening sound.
• Added delay effect to space ship interior sounds in the intro.
• Show notification when reaching new high score ranks during mission.
• Increased the score penalty for destroyed containers.
• Show additional score bonus indication at the location of kill streak and multikill events.
• Added option to show website link in main menu in arcade mode.
• Fixed splash screen logo clipping on Steam Deck's 16:10 screen.
• Added Steam achievements.
• Increased visual explosion size and terrain cut radius a bit.
• Made explosion sound pitch and volume change based on explosion size.
• Made list selection menu items wrap around.
• Show last failed or completed game score in main menu until starting a new game.
• Increased light flash intensity from hit crystal structures.
• Added a large mushroom-like plant variant.
• Fixed explosion particles not getting cleared at mission end.
• Added direction indicator guiding towards extraction zone or nearest medical station.
• Removed medical station screen edge indicator blinking.
• Added a progress bar during shader compiling at main state transitions.
• Don't play camera zoom in animation or update messages while compiling shaders.
• Log performance statistics from terrain generation.

This update is now available on Itch.io and Steam.

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Posted on 2025-10-27

Phobos Down 0.1.0 beta released

This update to Phobos Down is a big one! Although the development slowed down during the summer, the list of changes is exceptionally long.

There are many small visual improvements like added variation for the vegetation, lightning arcs for stun effects, shadow issue fixes and improved anti-aliasing in the UI. First version of the full intro sequence has also been created. This update also adds three completely new enemies and a minefield creating device.

One change worth a special mention is the target movement prediction for the auto-aiming. This makes hitting fast-moving enemies much easier, especially when they move up or down hills. This is something that should have been there from the start. Better late than never, I guess.

I have made some significant changes to scoring. The maximum amount of enemies per wave has been decreased which shortens the average mission duration and lowers the maximum possible score from direct enemy kills. Enemies now drop a bit more score items and all score rewards have been almost doubled to compensate with the lower number of enemies. This should lead to more variation in the final scores as lining up enemies for multi-kill and kill streak events is much better rewarded.

Here are all the changes since the last alpha version:

• Added a tip message on medical station usage.
• Added circular equipment quality level progression indicator.
• Improved anti-aliased line rendering.
• Predict target movement in auto-aim with direct firing weapons too.
• Added more confidential documents with backstory bits to destroy.
• Added initial version of full intro sequence.
• Show version on number in main menu only.
• Fixed initial window size on first run too big for 1080p display.
• Toggle full-screen mode with Alt+Enter and F11 too.
• Improved controller guide layout.
• Turned devices into movable rigid bodies.
• Added lightning arcs for stun effect from explosions and devices.
• Fixed shadow quality degradation when fragments/gibs fall outside of terrain.
• Fixed hit streak tracking not counting reflected/pierced projectiles.
• Added a plant variant that shoots spikes around when exploding.
• Fixed obstacle placement not obeying set terrain height limits.
• Added two more tree mesh variants.
• Added visual wave effect to lure devices.
• Reshow intro after 5 minutes without user input in menu when running in demo mode.
• Added two new walker enemy types.
• Implemented an alternative high score initials entry for the arcade cabinet.
• Added new flying boss enemy type.
• Play additional sounds when a boss enemy spawns or dies.
• Destroyed enemy weak points now drop additional score items.
• Fixed log spam and slowdown with more than 128 walker legs on screen.
• Lowered maximum enemy wave length.
• Increased some enemy score rewards slightly.
• Doubled "no damage to player/containers" score rewards.
• Increased termination streak detection time threshold a bit.
• Increased all termination score bonuses significantly.
• Mention protecting containers first in mission objective text.
• Fixed generating bad triangles at terrain edges where height is zero.
• Added one more clustered plant variant.
• Made the first medical station device drop sooner at mission start.
• Increased delay from wave reward drops to extraction zone appearing.
• Fixed mouse control mode unintentionally activating at game start with gamepad.
• Limit initial score item velocity to prevent them from flying too far from the source.
• Shortened tip texts shown at mission start.
• Fixed mission info animation not playing when running at low frame rate.
• Added separate more visual control guide version for the arcade cabinet.
• Handle WASD keys using physical key codes to support non-qwerty keyboards.
• Added a mine field laying device.

I decided that the game is now ready enough for beta testing phase. In practice, this does not change much but from now on I will be focusing more on balancing and issue fixes. There will be new content like more enemies, modifiers and devices, but I'm not planning to make any big gameplay changes anymore. Now is a good time to report all those issues and annoyances you've encountered.

This update is now available on Itch.io and Steam.

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Posted on 2025-09-08