London Games Fest was this week, and I was lucky enough to attend its New Game Plus event. My first stop of the day was Astro Burn, developed by Beyond The Pixels.
Astro Burn first gave me a Jetpack Joyride vibe, with its side scrolling, bullet hell action, but I put that initial comparison right out of my mind as soon as I got my hands on it. We follow Astro, a ginger space kitty who’s spaceship is shot down, and for reasons unknown, is trapped inside her subconscious fighting off giant cuddly animals of all shapes and sizes. I mean, our first boss in the demo I played was a panda in a mech. It was truly a funny experience from beginning to end. I give props to the dialogue; it’s extremely funny.
The moveset is simple to understand and easy to grasp; You have a simple forward firing weapon with infinite ammo, and destroying obstacles and the adorable enemies drop power-ups, shields and health. One of my little nitpicks would be that, with the power-ups, it’s a little unclear what it is exactly they do. A little bit of clarity on what each one does the first time you pick it up would work wonders on clarifying what they are to the player. One of my favourite features though, mentioning the power-ups, is the Catnip Power-Up bar. At different stages of charge, you could press the button and do various different anime and retro game inspired special attacks, like the Kamahamaha, or the Haduken.
My favourite part of this entire interaction and demo though has to be the developer, Haz Dulull. The gentleman before me managed to find a bug that broke the game, and Haz immediately swept into action, laughing with the player and was actually impressed that he had managed to break the game! He asked the player if he could replicate it and what it was he did to do it, before noting it down for investigation later. That’s a game developer passionate about their project if I’ve ever seen one. Astro Burn was the first of many great games I played that day, but it was a strong showing that seriously impressed me. If you’re into your old style SNES games, give this one a look-see.
Astro Burn currently has a demo available on Steam, ahead of its full release on the 27th of April 2026!