As a new developer to Steam with a game in a niche (some might say dead) genre, news coverage from other sources is expected to be non-existent, so this post and future ones will provide information that should help players understand what Heli-Cats is about.
A different path
Many shoot'em ups post-2000s are of the 弾幕 (danmaku) / bullet hell variety started by Toaplan and popularized by Cave. They are certainly enjoyable games for fans of this genre and offer the difficulty and complexity that highly skilled players desire. However, screens constantly blanketed by numerous neon projectiles and score multiplier objects are often intimidating to beginners and average players. Even long time fans can get exhausted by the need to push the "hellishness" even further with each new title.
Heli-Cats follows a different path, one that was used by games from Video System and Psikyo, the makers of the Sonic Wings / Aero Fighters, Strikers 1945, and Gunbird series. These were staples in most arcades during the mid 1990s. Their appeal then could be attributed, in part, due to arcade visitors not immediately dismissing them as "way too hard or impossible" based on the attract screens. They gave potential players the confidence to put in that initial coin into the machine.
The biggest difference between such games and pure bullet hells is the bullet density. Enemy projectiles here are not as numerous, albeit faster. Make no mistake, though, they will get more intense and suck those credits past the early missions. But players should still feel that beating it with a single credit, or 1CC, is achievable with practice.
Heli-Cats was born out of the desire to make a new shooting game with that simpler but solid Video System / Psikyo gameplay... with some extra elements thrown in. And the main extra addition is the dual-elevation feature, which most experienced players would compare with Ikaruga's polarity system.
A reasonably realistic military helicopter shoot'em up
Even though it may seem inspired by Treasure's iconic title at first glance, the elevation swapping was conceived by a long time desire to see if a more "realistic" shmup could be made. Most titles in the genre are usually in a setting with spacecraft, while military themed ones seem to have fallen out of favor. The reasons for this are unknown, but it is possible that real world military fighter jets look strange when exhibiting the spaceship movements most shmups demand (or even remaining stationary in mid-air as seen in some games). They also defy logic when shooting infinite bullets, missiles, and laser weapons.
The solution to the unrealistic movement is helicopters. And helicopters can go up and down in height. But diving completely into a full range elevation adjustment like Sega's 1982 game Zaxxon is too slow and cumbersome for modern tastes. So opting for just two planes of elevation with a quick swap in between them results in gameplay that is a lot more responsive and intuitive to control. An angled horizontal scrolling view also gives the player more room to experience this mechanic to its fullest (as opposed to the more common narrow vertical view). As for the illogical firepower, well, it is STILL a shmup and arcade games prize fun above all. It does introduce systems that keep it reasonably realistic, though.
The next few posts will cover these various systems and scoring in more detail. In the meantime, you can download the demo. Unlike an actual arcade, you don't need to put in a coin to give it a try.