Freeze, punk: Mighty Tactical Shooter puts the space-brakes on the shmup

“Nothing’s too good for the man who shot Freaky Space Worm Valance.”

Being a certified Old Man™ with the reflexes of a sedated elephant seal, I can hardly imagine a game I’d like to play less than a bullet hell shoot-em-up. And yet, Mighty Tactical Shooter has me considering blowing the dust off the old gaming Kickstarter klaxon. Before you start the impeachment proceedings, hear me out. Mighty Tactical Shooter is a shooter that you can play and drink a beer at the same time.

Mighty Tactical Shooter is the brainchild of Brighton-based former Second Life dev Johnny Marshall, and it’s built around an idea I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen before. The game is a 2D side-scrolling shooter like the ones that have roamed the Earth since the age of the dinosaur, but the evolutionary twist here is that the game is entirely turn-based.

Turns in Mighty Tactical Shooter are simultaneous with the enemies’, so when they fire a missile at you, you can use a gravity weapon to alter its path, or target it with a missile of your own. Basically, you get to see a shmup the way Wayne Gretzky sees a hockey rink. There’s also three different AI subsystems on your ship (“AI buddies” — sounds legit) which you can route power to at your discretion, boosting your ability to dish out, absorb, or repair damage, which would give you a lot of flexibility in how you approach different tactical environments.

There’s eight hours left to fund Mighty Tactical Shooter on Kickstarter, but its success is now a forgone conclusion as it hit its £10,000 goal earlier today. Marshall told me yesterday that the game already runs like a dream on his Android tablet, and he’s planning an iPad edition as well.

The pitch video is after the break.