AquaNimble

AquaNimble is a shooter where you fight underwater enemies with fast-moving vessels and an arsenal of quirky weapons. Across two campaigns, you take on snake dragons, cybernetic sharks, swirling skeletons, submarines and more, including giant bosses. Around 20 playable vessels each have a default weapon, a special ability and a giga shot.

Campaigns and challenges

The two campaigns share similarities, while the second remixes the first with some different enemies. Forever Abyss assembles a campaign from more than 200 patterns, selected according to your level, with enemy changes and other variations. Daily Campaigns offer one campaign every 24 hours, identical for all players during that period. Arcade mode is the standard mode, and you can also play Boss Rush or take on any campaign in Pacifist mode, where you dodge bullets and score points by letting them graze your vessel.

You can set your number of lives and continues, choose a difficulty and adjust other challenge settings; your score is adjusted to match. There are six difficulty levels, from Power Trip to Nightmare. The two lowest slow enemy bullets and reduce how often they fire, while Power Trip has 33% fewer enemies. The two highest difficulties have 33% more enemies, enemies have more health on the three highest difficulties, and enemies regenerate health on the highest. Boss Rush lets you turn bosses off, fight only bosses, or choose standard or endurance fights. Endurance bosses have four times the health and offer greater rewards.

Vessels and weapons

The roughly 20 unlockable vessels differ in their default weapons, specials and giga shots. Most have a dash; others use an anti-dash to slow down in tight spaces, or replace the dash with a powerful secondary weapon that can overheat if you do not let it cool. A vessel starts or respawns with two options that fire a range of weapons and act as shields. Once lost, they stay gone until you die, though you can retract them by holding the dash button; while retracted, they cannot shoot.

You can find more than 30 weapons, each with its own traits, and a random weapon generator creates weapons from around 30 variables. Upgrade weapons by adding beams, up to seven, or removing beams down to one for more damage; adding beams makes the weapon fire slightly more slowly. You can also add fire. Stop firing for five seconds to charge a giga shot, whose damage depends on the weapon and its upgrades. Specials clear bullets and damage enemies, with effects that include bombs, clusters of homing torpedoes, a summoned dragon, or healers that fight and restore health.

Enemies and combat

The game includes more than 70 enemy types. Outside the first level, 99% of enemies appear at random coordinates, within limits, so their positions can vary even when you know what is coming. Giant bosses have at least seven attack patterns, played in random order; lower difficulties use fewer patterns. On the top two difficulties, bosses have endurance versions with four times their usual health and a larger score reward. Bonus levels ask you to collect fuel before it explodes.

Co-op for four players

Up to four players can play together using a controller or keyboard. The game also records scores and stats so you can compare vessel and campaign performance, with a score awarded when you complete a level or reach game over.