Hi everyone!

I'm Awezoom. With almost 50 years under my belt, I've spent a lifetime tinkering with computers, programming, designing, and composing music since the days when games were nothing more than pixels, and the demoscene and trackers were among us.

Throughout my life, one thing hasn't changed. Video games have always been my great passion—and they still are—and today I want to talk to you about one of the most special projects I've ever worked on: Geometry Rift, a game I am developing side by side with my 16-year-old son under our label, Dad and Son Games.

To sum it up quickly, imagine the unmistakable neon-light visual style and the frantic ship-shooting gameplay in the purest Geometry Wars style, crossed with the addictive progression and extreme survival challenge of a Vampire Survivors. We’ve taken that arcade essence of piloting, dodging, and shooting in a hyper-colorful environment, and brought it into a modern roguelite universe where survival is everything.

This means the key isn't just your skill with the controller, but how you evolve during combat to stay alive. As you play, you'll level up and upgrade your ship on the fly, choosing new weapons and power-ups to create devastating builds. You'll go from shooting a basic laser to becoming an absolute destruction machine capable of clearing the screen of thousands of enemies just to survive one more minute.

The Origin: A Small Retro Experiment

It all started very casually. I was working on another project, a narrative video game called Still Breathing. In one of the locations in that game, there is an old green phosphor computer that the player can use, and we wanted to include some interactive minigames in it. Thinking about what games to put into that console, I remembered Geometry Wars, a game I was heavily addicted to during the Xbox 360 era and which is already a modern classic. I thought to myself: "Man, it would be awesome to make a tribute to it."

I made a very simple version, imitating that green phosphor monitor. I started playing it and thought: "This is so cool!". I had always thought about how beautiful that game was and how I would love to make something with that style again, with that look and those visual effects. Suddenly I had the chance; I saw the prototype was turning out really beautiful and fun, so I just said to myself: "I want to turn this into an incredible game."

I thought: "I'd love to make a ship shooter like this, but done right, taking advantage of current visual power, at resolutions up to 4K and with a flawless finish. And adding gameplay challenges and elements that take it even further."

I separated the prototype from the original game, and we decided to go all in. I've poured everything I could into the sound, visuals, and music to leave a very personal mark with my own style, while building a game that feels modern and spectacular.

Uniting Two Generations of Gamers

One of the decisions I made was to develop this game with my son. And honestly, it’s being an incredible experience because, even though we are both hardcore gamers, we bring complementary perspectives. By working together, we've managed to combine his vision of the modern player with my deeper experience with the classics.

By uniting these two visions, it was clear to us that we didn't want to just make another clone in the survival genre, so we added new layers: missions with original and special challenges, final bosses in each world, and a much more structured progression built around the tactical control of your ship.

A Love Letter to the Classics (and a Lot of Light)

Visually, Geometry Rift is a journey through arcade history, all wrapped in the unmistakable vector and neon light aesthetic inherited from Geometry Wars, paying tribute to how the classics of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s evolved. In the pure chaos of the match, not only will you have to face massive hordes, but you will also recognize among them enemies that are direct visual tributes to Space Invaders, the alien insectoids of Galaxian, or Centipede, among others, attacking in coordinated swarms or extraterrestrial formations placed in the style of these classics during special missions.

Of course, there will be no shortage of those enemy hordes that will fill the entire screen to wipe you out. Furthermore, you will face gigantic Tetris-shaped pieces heading towards you to crush you, until you reach the true challenges of each world: epic final bosses that are our personal adaptation of myths like Phoenix or Mega Phoenix.

And to wrap all of this up, we wanted the screen to be a true spectacle of light. Not suitable for those with photosensitive epilepsy. It has taken us a lot of time to get the lighting of the shots, explosions, and enemies to mix fluidly and naturally. We wanted that saturation of colors and neon to be striking, but pleasing to the eye, creating a unique atmosphere. Especially the Glow effect that we added and which we feel so proud of. I highly recommend the article where I talk about the latter.

Naturally, we have put a massive amount of love into every detail. If you are drawn to the challenge of piloting, upgrading your ship to the extreme in the middle of battle, and fighting for your survival in a frantic bullet hell with heavy electronic music, I invite you to support us.

And a quick reminder to everyone that we will soon be releasing a playable demo version of Geometry Rift, and it will be available for purchase on Steam on October 2nd. If you want to check it out and stay up to date with all the news, add it to your Wishlist.

Add Geometry Rift to your Steam Wishlist here. Any support for our small family studio means the world to us!