Neon survival roguelite

DARK COSMOS

Left stick moves. Right stick aims your main weapon. The rest of your arsenal auto-fires and auto-targets. Level up, build a loadout of drones, and hold the line against five big bosses.

Free, on iOS & Apple TV. Requires the TestFlight app, the link above adds you automatically, no invite needed.

Live demo · Build 165 · Elemental Dimensions, local co-op, ship classes, and a mountain of new contentFullscreen ↗

Move with WASD or arrows. Weapons fire themselves. Collect gems, level up, survive. (Loads a WebAssembly build. Give it a moment.)

BUILD 165

Elemental Dimensions, local co-op, ship classes, and a mountain of new content

latest
  • Elemental Dimensions: after every boss dies, three portals open at once, Fire, Void and Light, each its own themed area with its own enemies. Step through and the run keeps going, now shaped by whichever dimension you picked.
  • Local co-op: a second player can join with their own controller mid-menu. Both pilots level up, pick upgrades and unlock drones independently, no more one player carrying the run.
  • Ship classes: six hull types to choose from before a run, plus a gold-unlocked Obsidian cruiser with more weapon slots and heavier armour for players who have banked enough runs to afford it.
  • A manual weapon and a drone army: the right stick now aims a dedicated weapon of its own, on top of your auto-firing arsenal, and a Drone Bay lets you deploy and upgrade autonomous drones alongside a decoy that pulls enemy aggro.
  • Your ship banks into turns: the hull visibly tilts as you steer, the kind of feel bullet-hell fans have been asking for.
  • A big content drop: new weapons, new enemies and a new heavy-hitting enemy type, all built on the same elemental system as everything else, so they all slot into the reaction matrix in the Bible below.
  • Reset Shop: a respec option in the meta shop refunds every gold coin you have ever spent, so you can rebuild your permanent upgrades from scratch if you change your mind.
BUILD 79

Bolder neon, the Warp dash, and smoother progression

previous
  • Bolder, more saturated neon: every enemy and element colour was pushed harder and the white-hot cores pulled back, so the field reads more vividly and each enemy keeps its own colour instead of washing out.
  • The Warp dash: the dash is now a Warp, with a motion effect that streaks and darkens the world around you while your ship stays sharp, so it feels like punching through space rather than blinking across it.
  • Smoother progression: an XP bar on the HUD shows your next upgrade coming, weapons are paced out so the build forms gradually instead of all at once, and level-ups keep arriving deep into a run.
  • One new threat at a time: new enemy types now debut at wave boundaries, one per wave, so you learn each before the next arrives. Enemies also scale with your level, so a powered-up build still has a real fight.
  • Tuned for launch: the demo opens straight into survival mode, with a quick controls hint on your first run.
BUILD 78

Enemy codex, deployable drones, explorable areas, and a full neon redesign

earlier
  • Enemy codex: the first time you meet a new enemy the game pauses and shows a card with its stats, its threat level, and how to counter it, alongside a live preview of it moving and attacking. Every enemy you have met is then browsable any time from the pause menu or the start menu, and the codex fills in as you play.
  • Deployable drones: autonomous drones now fight alongside you. Five classes, the Sentinel, Bomber, Interceptor, Disruptor and Logistics, each with its own behaviour and a shop upgrade tree, configured in a new Drone Bay you open mid-run.
  • Full neon interface redesign: a living neon backdrop behind the menus with a staggered reveal as each screen loads, the HUD, results screen, pause menu and weapon dock all rebuilt in one neon language, and a player ship with a breathing engine core over twinkling stars and a pulsing nebula.
  • One coherent build: the drone system, the codex and the interface pass all landed on a single build, with the deterministic core and the full test suite green throughout.
BUILD 58

The Chasm bosses, new enemies, game modes, and a 3-minute survival build-up

earlier
  • Three new bosses (The Chasm): FunZo floods the arena with growing pools that burn you, Graviton drags you around with gravity pulls while firing radial blobs, and The Eye fires lasers that lead your movement and blinks around the edge. A survival run now rotates through all five bosses.
  • Three new enemies: the Ghost teleports onto you after a brief silhouette tell, the Accumulator grows bigger and deadlier the longer it lives so it has to be killed early, and Tanks now launch killable homing missiles you can out-curve.
  • New survival pacing: normal enemies build up over the first three minutes, a sudden swarm crests at the three-minute mark, and the first boss arrives at 3:30. Bosses now fight you amid a steady trickle of fast adds instead of in an empty arena.
  • Multiple game modes: survival and additional modes accessible from the main menu, each with its own pacing and objectives.
  • Your ship evolves: the player craft visibly grows more elaborate as you level, from a simple dart up to an ornate flagship, with a flash each time it ascends a tier.
  • Sharper neon, steadier frame rate: weapon effects always draw even under heavy load, the glow was retuned so cores read white-hot, floating damage numbers and hit-sparks were added, and the adaptive quality system now sheds the heaviest full-screen effects first so the neon look survives on slower hardware.
  • Pause menu: pause mid-run with a controller button or Esc, then resume or head back to the mode menu.
BUILD 48

Combat depth, six new enemies, new boss, dodge, and sound

earlier
  • Six new enemy types: Zapper (fast lightning striker), Scatterer (blood pellet fan), Bomber (slow, lobs a telegraphed fire AoE), Orbiter (cold spinning shards, a moving contact hazard), Lancer (slow, fires a telegraphed light beam), and Rusher (relentless no-pause dasher). Each mirrors a player weapon archetype, so the field reads like your own arsenal turned against you.
  • New set-piece boss: five rotating attack patterns, a sweeping Cutter beam, Artillery rockets that arc up and rain down as shrapnel, expanding Shockwave rings with a gap to dodge through, a Charge slam, and a Summon wave. Runs alongside the existing four-attack Warden.
  • Dodge (Thrusters): a dash with brief invulnerability, the direct counter to the Rusher and the new boss attacks. Upgradeable in the meta shop.
  • Enemy variation: every spawned enemy now rolls a size, HP and speed variant, bigger means tankier and slower. Tanks and Brutes arrive with escorts so they're never an easy solo target.
  • Sound effects: weapons, impacts, level-up and boss attacks all have audio for the first time.
  • Shop overhaul: the meta shop spreads properly across the screen with icons and entry animations; the cards no longer clip off the edge on smaller displays.
  • Armour floor and balance pass: armoured enemies always take a fair minimum from chip and ranged weapons. Weapon damage, gold rewards and upgrade costs tuned for the longer run shape.
BUILD 31

What's new, and how it fits together

earlier
  • Meta-progression: every run now banks gold from your kills, and the game-over screen is a shop. Spend it on permanent upgrades, more health, armour, fire rate, pickup range, move speed, that carry into every future run. Your gold is saved between sessions, so each run leaves you a little stronger for the next.
  • Weapon unlocks: the shop also unlocks new weapons for good. The Scatter starts locked, so your first big goal is banking enough gold to add it to the pool of weapons you can draft mid-run. More unlocks to come.
  • Endless escalation: survive past the early game and the enemies themselves start scaling up, tougher and hitting harder the longer you last. Runs keep ramping instead of flattening out, so your build has to keep pace.
  • Leech mod: a sustain pick that heals you a little on every kill. In a dense swarm it turns constant clearing into constant healing, the counter-play to the rising pressure.
  • Pierce and Split mods: two build-defining picks for your projectile weapons. Pierce lets a shot punch through a line of enemies instead of stopping at the first; Split fans extra shots out wherever one lands. They stack, and they count toward unlocking a weapon evolution.
  • New weapon, the Scatter: a scattergun that fires a fan of blood-element pellets at the nearest enemy. Tight clusters melt, and because the pellets carry an element they trigger the same reactions as everything else. Evolves into the Fusillade.
  • New enemy, the Brute: a slow, huge wall of HP that turns up from mid-game on. Heavily armoured, so light hits barely dent it, it soaks damage while the swarm closes in around it.
  • Per-weapon build-craft: upgrades are now chosen weapon by weapon. Beyond raw power, each weapon has its own mechanical picks, a wider blade arc, chain lightning, a bigger nova, a faster turret battery, so two builds of the same weapon feel different.
  • Weapon evolutions: pour enough upgrades into one weapon and take any transformative mod, and it evolves. The blade becomes a 360° Tempest, the pulse a Tesla Coil, the nova a Supernova, the orbit an Event Horizon, the beam a Lance, the turret a Garrison.
  • Set-piece boss: a heavy enemy that closes in and telegraphs four attacks, a melee sweep, a radial barrage, homing missiles, and a rotating spiral of shots. Drop it below 40% and it enrages, attacking faster and throwing extra spiral arms.
  • Mini-boss skirmishers: mid-range raiders that strafe and fire aimed shots, and drop a power-up when they fall.
  • Power-ups: slow time, freeze the field, nuke the screen, or heal, picked up on contact for an instant swing in your favour.
  • Decoy ability: summon a replica that pulls enemy aggro off you and pulses damage, then recharges, faster when it takes hits.
  • Hull plating: a real armor stat that cuts incoming damage, so survivability is now something you can build toward.
  • Smarter level-ups: evolutions are surfaced the moment they unlock, and every card shows the resulting power so you can see how a pick stacks with your build.
  • Carried over: live elemental reactions, reaction terrain and aura chains, telegraphed dashers, spiders and webs, the instant lightning strike, stand-still healing, and the F2 timing overlay / F4 low-effects toggle for weaker machines.
Why it plays well

Easy to control. Deep to build.

The two halves of the genre, done together: the immediate, one-thumb control of Vampire Survivors with the transformative build-craft of Nova Drift.

Twin-stick control

Left stick moves. Right stick aims your main weapon. Your other weapons auto-fire and auto-target. Instant to pick up, deep to master.

Transformative builds

Upgrades don't just add numbers. Mods change how weapons behave, and evolutions transform them entirely. Two runs play completely differently.

Performance first

A deterministic, data-oriented core renders thousands of enemies and projectiles at a stable frame rate. Built for the densities a long run reaches.

The loop

How a run works

Four things, over and over, while the horde gets denser. Everything else is the build you grow into.

1

Move

One stick, full 360°. Every weapon aims and fires itself. You only ever decide where to be.

2

Stack elements

Each weapon carries an element. Hit an enemy to build an aura, then hit it with a second, different element to set off a reaction.

3

Collect & level

Dead enemies drop XP gems. Bank enough and you pick an upgrade: a flat stat boost, or a transformative mod that changes how your elements behave.

4

Survive

Contact is death. Spawns escalate the longer you last. See how far the build you stumble into can carry you.

Burn & shockFire leaves a burn that ticks damage over time. Lightning leaves shock, so the target takes more from every other source.
ReactionsTwo different elements on one enemy detonate an area burst. Fire and lightning make Plasma; the full matrix lives in the Bible.
ArmourHeavy enemies soak most of each hit, but a hit always lands at least 10%, so chip damage and burn still wear a tank down.
The novelty engine

Elemental reactions

Every weapon carries an element. Hit an enemy to coat it with an aura. Hit it again with a different element and set off a reaction burst. That's the engine the whole game runs on.

FireColdLightningPoisonVoidKineticLightBloodTimeAether

Fire + Lightning = Plasma. Cold + Lightning = Superconduct. Fire + Void = Collapse. Poison + Void = Blight Implosion.
Ten named reactions and all their tuning live in the open Balance Bible.

The arsenal

Sixteen weapons, all automatic

Nothing in the loadout is aimed by hand. Each weapon carries an element, so what you pick up decides which reactions you can trigger. Pour upgrades into one and pair it with a transformative mod, and it evolves into a dramatically stronger form. The glyphs match what each weapon looks like on the field.

Blaster

Aether · Projectile

Your starting weapon. A simple, rapid auto-shooter that fires at the nearest enemy on a short cooldown, no fuss, steady damage while you build into the rest of the arsenal.

Blade

Kinetic · Melee

Sweeps a short arc at whatever is closest, no aiming and no cooldown to speak of. Evolves into the Tempest, a full 360° whirlwind.

Electricity

Lightning · Projectile

An instant forked strike that zaps the nearest enemy. Lightning lays down shock, so the target takes more from every other hit. Upgrades it to chain through a whole cluster.

Nova

Fire · Area

Erupts around you on a timer. Fire leaves a burn that ticks damage across everything caught in the blast.

Orbit Shards

Cold · Orbital

Three shards circle you with no cooldown, dealing constant contact damage and coating enemies in a cold aura.

Beam

Light · Beam

A piercing line that locks to your nearest target and cuts through the whole row standing behind it.

Turret

Kinetic · Summon

A deployed turret that fires kinetic rounds on its own. Pure impact with no element, just steady pressure on the pack. Upgrade it to a whole battery.

Scatter

Blood · Spread

A scattergun that fires a fan of pellets at the nearest enemy, shredding anything clustered in front of you. Evolves into the Fusillade, a dense focused wall of shots.

Scythe

Void · Melee

A slow, heavy swing that cuts a percentage of the target's max HP, ignoring armour entirely, the equalizer against anything heavily plated. Evolves into Reaping, a full 360° sweep that hits twice as hard.

Chalice

Poison · Lingering pool

Drops a pool of poison at your feet that ticks damage on anything standing in it. Stand your ground and let the swarm walk into it. Evolves into Overflowing, bigger and longer-lasting pools.

Railgun

Light · Piercing beam

A piercing lance that always targets the farthest enemy in range, not the nearest, and marks it to take more damage from everything else. Evolves into Prism Lance, splitting into a second beam on impact.

Wildfire

Fire · Chain

Ignites the nearest enemy, and after a beat the ignition spreads to everything standing near it, chaining outward through a cluster. Evolves into Firestorm, leaving burning ground behind every chain.

Scar Tissue

Blood · Reactive burst

Builds a stack every time you take a hit, then discharges a damaging ring around you once it stacks up, scaled off your own health, turning getting hit into a weapon. Evolves into Hemorrhage, adding a bleed that scales with enemy health.

Momentum Core

Kinetic · Projectile

Fires a burst at the nearest enemy, and the faster you're moving when it fires, the harder and quicker it hits, rewarding staying mobile over turtling. Evolves into Overdrive, a bigger burst plus a speed boost while charged.

Chronowell

Time · Summon

Drops a stasis field that slows everything inside it, movement, fire rate, even their own shots, by half. Deals no damage of its own, pure crowd control for the rest of your build to capitalise on. Evolves into Stopwatch, which also fully freezes one dangerous target.

Thunder Wake

Lightning · Tracking area

Strikes the ground under whichever enemy has covered the most distance recently, leaving an electrified patch behind, punishing anything trying to outrun your build. Evolves into Storm Front, chaining every third strike to nearby fast movers.

The horde

Who's coming for you

Twenty-five enemy types so far, each one a different problem to solve, with five bosses in their own section below. Each glyph matches its real in-game silhouette and colour, drawn at roughly its real relative size, so tanks, elites and brutes are visibly bigger.

Swarmer

Fodder

The horde itself. Weak alone, lethal in a wall. Drifts straight at you and dies in a hit or two.

6 HP · fast

Summoner

Heavy

Slow and steady. Fires a spreading fan of homing missiles instead of fighting you directly, so it's a priority to kill before the missiles pile up.

13 HP

Shooter

Ranged

Hangs back and fires red bolts at you. Punishes standing still and keeps you moving through the pack.

6 HP · ranged

Splitter

Multiplies

Kill it and it breaks into two swarmers. Clear a cluster of these and the screen briefly gets worse.

10 HP · splits ×2

Elite

Charger

Fast, armoured, and hits like a truck. It charges along a telegraphed line then lunges, so you can read it and dodge. Big danger and big XP.

12 HP · 6 armour

Spider

Trapper

Small and fast, it darts in and lays a web trail that slows you. Cross several strands and you crawl, so they box you in for the rest of the pack.

5 HP · lays webs

Skirmisher

Mini-boss

Holds mid-range, strafes around you and fires aimed shots like a thinking opponent. Bring it down and it drops a power-up.

38 HP · drops a power-up

Brute

Wall

A slow, huge wall of HP that turns up from mid-game on. Heavily armoured and hits hard on contact, it soaks punishment while the swarm closes in around it. Never arrives alone.

60 HP · 8 armour

Rusher

Relentless Dasher

Never pauses between charges. No telegraph, no recovery, it just closes the gap again and again until it or you is dead.

20 HP · relentless

Zapper

Fast Striker

The fastest thing on the field. Darts in and fires lightning bolts, then pulls back. Hard to pin down, dangerous in clusters.

8 HP · lightning fast

Scatterer

Ranged

Fires a fan of blood pellets at you, covering a wide arc. Punishes clustering in front of it and keeps the blood element in play at range.

11 HP · 1 armour · pellet fan

Bomber

Lobber

Slow and deliberate. Lobs a telegraphed fire AoE that you can see coming, but it herds you into worse positions while the rest of the field closes in.

22 HP · 2 armour · fire AoE

Orbiter

Contact Hazard

Rings of cold shards orbit its body as it walks toward you. The shards deal contact damage independently of the body, so the safe gap to approach through is thin.

16 HP · 6 armour · orbiting shards

Lancer

Beam Sniper

Slow-moving but fires a telegraphed light beam-line that cuts straight through whatever is in the way. The tell is brief, learn to read it.

15 HP · 3 armour · beam shot

Ghost

Teleporter

Drifts in slowly, flashes a silhouette where it is about to appear, then teleports straight onto you to strike. Running doesn't break the lock, so you have to read the tell and sidestep.

18 HP · teleports

Accumulator

Growing Threat

Starts modest and grows bigger, faster and harder-hitting the longer it stays alive. Ignore it and it becomes a wall, so it forces a priority kill before it gets out of hand.

38 HP · grows over time

Tank Missile

Homing Shot

Summoners launch these in a spreading fan. They home in with a limited turn rate, so you can out-curve one by cutting across its path, and they are killable if you would rather shoot them down.

8 HP · homing · killable

Centurion

Ranged Sentry

A colourless armoured sentry that takes on whichever element rules the dimension it's guarding, same silhouette, different threat depending on where you meet it. Hangs back and fires at range.

14 HP · 2 armour · ranged

Wyrm

Segmented

A long chain of small segments that all share a single health pool. Chip away at any part of it and the whole thing weakens together.

8 HP total · segmented

Beacon

Stationary Support

Doesn't fight itself, it just sits there sharpening every enemy near it. Leave it up and the whole pack gets meaner. High HP, zero threat alone.

260 HP · stationary · buffs nearby enemies

Glass Wisp

Phaser

Fast and fragile, but every hit has a coin-flip chance to phase it out of existence for a moment, untargetable, so finishing one off can take longer than its HP suggests.

12 HP · phases on hit

Halo Chain

Pack

Tethers itself to the nearest packmate and buffs the whole chain, including knockback immunity, so pulling one out of formation is the only way to weaken the group.

8 HP · pack tether

Leech

Latch

Latches onto you on contact and drains your health to heal itself. It doesn't let go on its own, only a knockback breaks the latch.

18 HP · latches on contact

Coil

Orbiter

Orbits at a fixed radius that keeps tightening the longer it survives. Hit it and the radius resets, so ignoring it lets it close in fast.

12 HP · tightening orbit

Fleet Kite

Kiter

A true kiter. It flees the moment you close in, capped turn rate and all, while firing a slowing bolt back at you to keep the gap open.

50 HP · flees + slows you
The set-pieces

Five bosses

A survival run rotates through all five. Each one telegraphs its attacks fairly, and each enrages once you drop it below 40% health, coming at you faster and fiercer for the kill.

The Warden

Boss · four attacks

The first boss. It closes in and telegraphs a melee Swing arc, a radial Barrage of shots, homing Missiles, and a rotating Spiral. Enraged, it speeds up and throws extra spiral arms.

3600 HP · enrages at 40%

Boss II

Boss · five patterns

Picks one of five attacks at random each cycle: a sweeping Cutter beam that keeps accelerating, Artillery that arcs up and rains shrapnel, expanding Shockwave rings with a gap to slip through, a line-telegraphed Charge slam, and a Summon wave of adds.

3400 HP · enrages at 40%

FunZo

Boss · The Chasm

A zone-flooding clown. It paints the arena with growing fuchsia pools that burn you, alternates a slow drift with sudden dashes, spits out one-hit jester minions, and bursts confetti where it lands. Its body swells as its health falls.

4000 HP · floods damage zones

Graviton

Boss · The Chasm

Gravity and darkness. It fires radial volleys of dark blobs with safe lanes between them, telegraphs a pull that drags you toward it (stronger the more health it loses), and keeps satellites orbiting its core. Below 40% it collapses into a pull-then-shove singularity.

4500 HP · pulls you in

The Eye

Boss · The Chasm

Predictive sight. Its lasers lead your movement, aiming where you are going rather than where you are, with a warning window that shrinks as it weakens but never drops below a fair minimum. It blinks around the arena edge, fans out extra beams below half health, and lines up a lazy off-screen dash for huge damage.

3000 HP · leads your movement
Play it for real

Join the TestFlight beta

The browser demo is a snapshot. The real game, on your iPhone or Apple TV, is where Dark Cosmos actually lives, full performance, full controller support, and every build as it ships. Tap the link, install TestFlight if you don't have it, and you're in. No invite, no waitlist.

Join the TestFlight Beta →
Built in the open

The Balance Bible

Every weapon, enemy, mod, and elemental reaction in this game is designed and tuned in a live web tool, with computed DPS, time-to-kill, and the full reaction matrix. It's public. Poke at the numbers.

Open the Balance Bible →
Where it's going

Roadmap

Built on a fully deterministic core. Each run is reproducible, tested, and ready for what comes next.

Shipped

Milestone 1: Core loop

  • Move, auto-fire, auto-target
  • Spawning enemies, spatial-hash collision
  • XP, level-up upgrade picker
  • Deterministic, headless-tested sim
In Progress

Milestone 2: Depth

  • Data-driven content pipeline (bible.json)
  • Elemental reaction engine (auras, stacks, Plasma)
  • Transformative mods, projectile mods, evolutions
  • Neon visual overhaul + adaptive quality
  • Sixteen weapons, twenty-five enemies, five bosses
  • Meta-progression, unlocks and weapon evolutions
  • Survival mode, enemy codex, deployable drones
  • More elements, characters and ascension tiers
Later

Milestone 3: More

  • Additional game modes
  • More weapons, enemies, and bosses
  • Ascension tiers and endless scaling