Where a shmup might have different ships, we have different androids, and we had a lot of fun designing our eight characters and drawing on our favorite arcade influences to give them each their own feel and keep them fun to play.

Cactus sports the classic vulcan style machine gun. Fast, precise, and — once it’s leveled up — able to tear apart pretty much anything. Her secondary weapon is the flamethrower, a short range, high-damage weapon that burns through packs of enemies and puts big dents in boss health bars.

Holly’s Seeker uses homing bullets — they lack punch but are easy to use and backed up by a slow traveling but destructive Cannonball to smash through enemy lines. Lemon uses the classic Spreadshot, when upgraded it has the most screen coverage in the entire game, and her four shot rocket launcher makes short work of tougher enemies.

Coral uses a slow reload, short ranged shotgun that clears groups at a time, and drops a plasma field capable of repelling enemy bullets and dealing damage to everything nearby. Starch uses a continuous beam laser rifle, and can rain down swarms of heatseeking micromissiles on hapless foes.

Aubergine doesn’t even use a gun! She controls a spinning robot called Helo and drives him into enemies remotely, while using her Singularity Generator to create mini black holes to suck enemies together. Shiitake uses a slow-firing but heavy-hitting Railgun that will pierce a row of enemies, and plants proximity activated Propeller Mines, letting her set traps and stay on the offensive even when backpedaling.

Last but not least, Peanut, sprays molten metal with her Magma Welder, leaving behind hazardous puddles, but her secondary weapon is the real show — the rocket propelled Giga Drill, capable of sending her screaming across the stage, impale large enemies then screwing them to the walls!

The character roster not only gives the game more ways to play, on PS4 they all get to mix together in local co-op. We have been fortunate enough to be able to demonstrate Cactus at conventions around the world now and hope when it finally reaches PlayStation Store, it’ll be with the benefit of all the tuning and play testing we’ve been able to do along the way!