NEOGEAR -Summer Caravan '26- Released

I'm so excited to share NEOGEAR -Summer Caravan '26-, a tight, two-minute time-attack shmup I made. You play as Porter, a retired frame pilot, brought back into the fray to fight against the rampant AI known as KAMI.

You can play the game for free, right now, on web, Linux, Windows, and macOS. It features gamepad and keyboard support with configurable input.

A caravan mode in a shmup is a timed stage where you compete to get the highest score possible. My current best score is 207200! Can you beat it?

The development of NEOGEAR dates back to over 20 months ago, where I started working on it but took a pause until returning to it in a smaller form. I've been working on building up my game dev skills, and I thought a caravan mode would be a great limited scope before diving into the full game. This caravan mode was made in 30 days.

My pal Chromatic Arcana did the key art and character designs. It was so fun getting to collaborate with him, and I love the way it turned out. Here's some of the concept art.

Porter, the character you play as in the caravan demo:

Porter's frame, a circular, heavy ship:

The game is coded in Lua and powered by Usagi Engine. The music tracks are made by doranarasi and used under a permissive license, which I'm grateful for.

If playing shmups isn't your thing, here's a gameplay video I made:

Now that NEOGEAR -Summer Caravan '26- has been released, I'm going to plan out the full release and begin working on that soon. I've got lots of ideas for enemies, stages, and playable frames, including hinting at more of the world and story that the caravan mode didn't really touch on.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Check out NEOGEAR -Summer Caravan '26- on itch.io!