- Update 1.0.0.4 - Mission challenge changed, weapon wheel streamlined - 16 April 2026
* Biome 1 mission "Sailing the Seas": the challenge has been changed from "only shoot left" to "no dashes". * Double-press to close weapon wheel / ability wheel immediately. * Fixed controller image in options menu.
- Update 1.0.0.2 - Launch bug fix - 15 April 2026
Gunboaters! It's ya boy again, Yeti the croc. Err I mean, Tom the developer. This update includes: * Improved asset loading on game launch. This should fix launch issues for some players. * Fixed super move damage bug. More QOL bits and other bug fixes coming soon!
- 1.0.0.1 - Mouse bug fixes - 14 April 2026
* Fixed some laptop trackpad mouse issues. * Added a "mouse contain" option, which might be useful when the game is played with accessibility software, for example: Mhook. Let us know if there are any issues with this! * Build version is shown on the "about" screen.
- Gunboat God is out now! - 13 April 2026
Hi everybody, It's the day I can officially add 'PC game dev' to my LinkedIn profile... I can't believe I'm actually saying it -Gunboat God is FINALLY HERE!!! 6 years in the making! 🎮 This has been such an awesome journey, from starting out as my passion project 6 years ago to getting signed with a publisher and working as a solo dev on my game fulltime... to release day! Thanks so much for sticking with me from the early days, wishlisting, leaving feedback on the playtests/demos, and for just reading this blog. I really appreciate it! Check out the new launch trailer! 👇 Gunboat God is 25% off for launch! It wouldn't be a proper game launch without a proper discount! You can grab Gunboat God for 25% off for 2 weeks. Smash through enemies and grab a bargain at the same time. 😉 A review would be so appreciated! 🌏 I also wouldn't be a proper indie dev without mentioning Steam reviews!…
- Answering your questions! - 10 April 2026
Hey everybody! It feels crazy to say, but... Gunboat God is launching in 3 days time! To prepare for launch day, I wanted to take a look at some of your questions I've seen popping up. Let's dive in! How much will Gunboat God be? Gunboat God will be £9.99/$12.99, but for launch week there'll be a 25% discount! How many levels are in Gunboat God? There are 212 levels of gun blastin' chaos! What is the gameplay length? Gunboat God is roughly 8 hours long. How many bosses are there? There are 5 boss fights in total! How many weapons and upgrades can you use? There are 8 weapons you'll unlock throughout the game and 74 different upgrades. Is Gunboat God Steam Deck Verified? Yes! You will be able to thrash enemies on the Steam Deck :) A small heads up! On a small percentage of PCs, the game might seem to be running in slow motion, which is especially confusing if you have a high-end build! I…
- Thanks for playing the Gunboat God demo! - 2 March 2026
Hey everybody, Steam Nest Fest has been awesome, and I wanted to say a big thanks to everybody who took the time to leave a review. Because of you... The Gunboat God demo is sitting at 96% positive! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2832190/Gunboat_God_Demo/ I'll be keeping the demo live, and all reviews are super appreciated! So if you've played the demo and liked what you saw, please consider leaving a review It'll really help my game get noticed and find other players. Also, if you'd like to leave any feedback about how you got on that will go straight to the dev team (me), head here: https://sttl2.share.hsforms.com/2-IiXnYBsRKKAWnIwlCvIAA (this is super helpful for spotting bug and making sure I'm able to polish everything before launch, so thanks!) Gunboat God is launching 13th April! It's now crunch time, and I'll be working hard on making my game the best possible frantic boat s…
- Gunboat God is coming April 13th! - 20 February 2026
Hey everybody! It's been a pretty wild week and I have THREE important bits of information I'm suuuper psyched to share: 1) Gunboat God is launching April 13th! It's crunch time! I'll be keeping my head down and working hard to make sure my game is the most fun arcade-y experience it can possibly be. 2) It's also getting a console release! Gunboat God will also be coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S! 3) The demo is now live! You can try your hand at some boat shootin' carnage below: If you get a chance, a review for the demo would be super appreciated to help me get noticed on Steam. As a solo dev, reviews are like gold dust, so please do let me know how you got on. Thanks so much for all your continued support. I'm really excited for launch day, and just wanted to say that this is all possible because of the playtests and the incredibly helpful feedback I received to help impro…
- Demo incoming Feb 19th! - 16 February 2026
Hey everyone, Big things are happening! Super stoked to say that Gunboat God will be part of Steam Next Fest. Loads of awesome games are being showcased with a whole load of demos from the 23rd - 2nd. Which brings us nicely to the next point... The Gunboat God demo is coming February 19th! I've hand-picked some levels from the first biome in the game for you to play in this demo. Expect chaos, challenge, and high scores begging to be beaten! You can head here to play from February 19th 2pm GMT. Don't miss the Indie Fan Fest! Gunboat God will also be part of the second Indie Fan Fest airing on Feb 19th, showing new game reveals, world premiere trailers, and more. You might even see some new GBG gameplay 👀 Talk soon!
- Haven’t Played Gunboat God Yet? The Playtest Is Still Live! - 30 September 2025
Ahoy, Gunboat Gods! 🚤💥If you haven’t had a chance to hop aboard yet, the Gunboat God playtest is still live! Take control of your Gunboat, blast through hordes of enemies, dodge massive multi-phase bosses, and upgrade your arsenal with Yeti the crocodile mechanic 🐊Your feedback will help shape the game, and your skills will be put to the ultimate test. Don’t miss your chance to become the all-powerful Gunboat God!Join the playtest now!
- Gunboat God is in the Convergence Showcase! - 17 September 2025
We’re excited to share that Gunboat God is part of the upcoming Convergence Showcase (18th September @ 19:30 BST).As part of the event, we’re reopening the Gunboat God Playtest here on Steam. If you missed out on the last playtest, now’s your chance to jump in and get a taste of the chaos.Blast your way through missions, face down multi-phase bosses, and experiment with all the firepower your gunboat can carry. Whether you’re testing strategies or just trying to survive a few more waves, we can’t wait to hear how you get on.Check out the showcase, hop in, join the playtest, and let us know what you think.
- Gunboat God needs YOUR feedback! - 1 September 2025
Hey everyone, A huuuuge thank you to everyone who checked out the GBG playtest. Having you join our development journey is super helpful, and your thoughts will really help shape the future for Yeti and their bullet-spitting boat. If you haven't already, please complete the feedback form (I'd be forever grateful!) If you played Gunboat God over the last couple weeks, please let me know how you got on. It'll only take a few minutes and will help me ensure GBG is the best it can possibly be! 👉Have your say here.👈 The playtest has been taken down for the time being while I work on polishing and implementing your suggestions. It may come back in the future but for now I'll be focusing all my efforts on trying to make a really great game! Thanks again for all your support, it means a lot.
- Gunboat God Playtest Still Live! - 15 August 2025
Hi everyone.Huge thanks to everyone who played and sent us feedback. You’ve been directly helping us shape the game into the best it can be.If you would like to give us more feedback on the game. You can here: https://fireshinegames.jotform.com/232772033272956 The Tiny Teams event might be over, but the Gunboat God playtest isn’t going anywhere just yet! Gunboat God will be playable on the show floor at Gamescom in Germany from the 20th to the 24th of August. So why not keep the playtest open for everyone at home, too? The playtest will now stay live until the end of August, giving you more time to dive back in and try to beat your high scores.Thanks so much for your support!
- The Gunboat God Playtest is live on Steam! - 7 August 2025
Hey everyone, It's been a while but we're back with some pretty exciting news... The playtest is ready to download! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2511210/Gunboat_God/ From now until August 14th, as part of the fantastic Tiny Teams event, you'll be able to blast your way through the first biome in Gunboat God. It's fast. It's frantic. It's a boatload of fun! Head to our Steam page to join the chaos, and if possible, we'd really appreciate your feedback. It'd be super helpful to hear about the parts you enjoyed, and the parts that made you want to yank your hair out (but hopefully there isn't many of those!). Help shape Gunboat God into a really awesome game: https://fireshinegames.jotform.com/232772033272956 Thanks so much for your support!
- Collisions - Dev Blog 4 - 11 April 2025
Ah yes, collisions. Every game developer’s favourite topic (that was a joke). I will never forget the pure agony of the Plesioth hip check in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. That was my first encounter with an evil hit box in games, and it was seared into my memory for all time. Thankfully for Gunboat God, I have a few different tools at my disposal to ensure accurate and CPU-efficient collisions. Enemies Setting up enemy hit boxes is done on a case by case basis. The larger the enemy, the more accurate the collision method must be. Small enemies like a beetle or bat only require a rectangle. This is manually adjusted for each of the enemy’s animations. Job done. Different shapes and sizes Round enemies can be conveniently given an elliptical collision shape, which can also be adjusted to suit the size of the enemy’s animations. Another job done. Precise collision masks Let’s say I have a…
- Thanks for playing Gunboat God! - 25 March 2025
Hey everyone! Just a super quick message to those of you who joined our playtest: Firstly, thanks so much for playing! We had over 300 people download Gunboat God over the last week which is amazing to see. I hope everyone enjoyed what they've seen of the game so far. Secondly, we'd love to hear your feedback! The main reason we organize playtests is so that we can hear about player experiences. Whether there was something you loved or something you think needs changing, it's all relevant and incredibly important to us. Please complete the feedback form by clicking this link here! With your help, we can make Gunboat God an awesome game that'll provide you with boatloads of fun! To chat with other gunboatin' enthusiasts and find out more about the next playtests, join the official Gunboat God Discord server. Speak soon, and thanks again!
- Play Gunboat God on Steam until 25th March! - 19 March 2025
Hey everybody, The Gunboat God Open Playtest is now live! If you'd like to start boatin' n' blastin' before the game officially launches, now's your chance. Head to the Steam page and click 'Request Access' to be part of the shoot 'em up mayhem. Your new pal Yeti is eagerly waiting! Your feedback is SUPER helpful The reason we're running this playtest is because we'd love to hear your thoughts on the game's current state and what improvements and tweaks you'd like to see in the full release. If you do decide to grab your weapons and jump aboard your trusty gunboat, we'd really appreciate it if you could fill in this feedback form: https://fireshinegames.jotform.com/232772033272956 The playtest will be closing on the 25th March. We were featured in The Mix Spring Showcase! I recorded a deep dive into the gameplay of Gunboat God where I showed some unseen footage of upgrades, abilities an…
- Building a level - Dev Blog 3 - 11 February 2025
Whast was I thinking? Here’s an interesting bit of useless trivia. Some time ago I thought I would be able to build all of Gunboat God’s levels by carefully sketching on a piece of grid paper, then manually typing object position values into the game’s code. *For every single object, in every single level*. So…I built one level this way and quickly decided I was never going to do that again. It was (not) fun while it lasted! I got straight to work on an internal tool that I could use to help me build the levels. Let’s take a peek behind the curtain. Workflow Before doing anything on the computer, I decide what the level type is going to be, based on where I expect the player to be at a certain point in the game. Level types include outgun, clear out, laps, collision course, and many more. Then I think about the basic structure of the level, ie: a single idea of what “challenge” or “vibe…
- Animation Process At A Glance - Dev Blog 2 - 17 October 2024
When I started prototyping Gunboat God and I was figuring out the mechanics, the style was already firmly set in my mind. I knew I wanted to use a strong silhouette style with a 3D-to-2D workflow. This was a great excuse to have heaps of characters to animate to make the game burst off the screen, but it also supported the genre of the game. For each character-enemy, I have four enemy types to choose from. Birds (Woodlands biome), water-based (Waterways biome), boat-based mutants (Marshlands biome) and aircraft-based mutants (Ruins biome). Then I simply decide on a thematic attack and get to work on the character’s first pass animations. These are low-effort “blocking” animations that I can quickly create and export to test in the game. This streamlines the entire workflow, since I know that once I’m programming the character and implementing its animations, there will be a lot of detai…
- The playtest is ending today! - 9 September 2024
Hey everyone, We'd like to say a BIG thanks to those who took part in the playtest. We hope you and Yeti had a boatload of fun shootin' n' blastin'! We need YOU! - to leave us your feedback The playtest is closing later today, but you can still complete the feedback form. Your feedback is SUPER important to us - your thoughts on Gunboat God so far will really help shape our game. We want to develop our game with our players at the heart of it, so please tell us how you got on! Which mission types did you enjoy the most? Was there a part of the game you found the least fun? Did you use more than one weapon? WE WANT TO KNOW!!! Complete the feedback form HERE Come join us on Discord We’ll always be active on here, updating you with the latest news – BUT if you did want a quicker way to hear about demos, playtests, and to chat with us, come join our Discord server. Thanks again for all your…
- The Gunboat God playtest is live NOW! - 20 August 2024
Hey everybody, It's TIME! Start surfin' and shootin' in the Gunboat God playtest - live NOW! Head to the Steam page and click Request Access We'd love to hear how you and Yeti get on. Help us make our game even better by leaving your feedback here: https://fireshinegames.jotform.com/232772033272956 Now get going… that Gunboat isn’t going to God itself!
