Substorm

Substorm is a team space shooter where your energy is your health and your ammunition at once. Every shot you fire makes you easier to kill, so a fight is won by spending well, not by holding the trigger.

If you played SubSpace Continuum, you will feel at home.

Ships fly on real inertia. There is no drag and no autopilot: you drift until you thrust the other way, so you lead every shot and plan every turn. Bombs bank off walls, mines wait in corridors, and nothing about it is forgiving.

TWO WAYS TO PLAY

Arena - elimination rounds, first team to four wins.

Base duel - each team has a core to defend and one to break. Warp to a teammate to join the fight, spend points between lives on a better loadout, and push through their gates before the clock runs out.

FIVE SHIPS

• Delta - a brawler that has to close.
• Interceptor - a duelist, with a second gun instead of bombs.
• Catamaran - the team's foothold. It holds ground rather than taking it.
• Bulwark - throws a minefield into a room it is not standing in.
• Corona - opens from further out than anything can answer from.

Swap between them at home, between lives.

PLAY ONLINE OR AGAINST BOTS

• Online team matches up to 4v4. Empty seats are filled by bots, so a match never waits for a full lobby.
• Ranked play with matchmaking. Sign in through Steam in your browser - any free Steam account works, and the Steam client is not needed.
• Practice against bots at five levels, from Rookie to Ace.
• A tutorial, replays, spectating and a map editor.

CONTROLS

Arrow keys to fly, Space for guns, X for bombs, C for mines, F to warp to a teammate (Q/ E picks who). Every key can be rebound in Settings.

Substorm is free and in active development. If you enjoy it, a donation keeps the servers running. Feedback and bug reports are very welcome in the comments.

Online play runs on a server in Europe.

WHERE IT COMES FROM

Substorm is heavily inspired by SubSpace Continuum, which I spent many years playing, mostly in the Extreme Games zone as Skype in the Blood squad. Energy as both health and ammo, bouncing bombs, attaching to a teammate: that is where they come from.