Jets'n'Guns

Jets’n’Guns is a horizontally scrolling shooter franchise developed and self-published by Rake in Grass, a three-person independent studio based in Prague, Czech Republic. The original game released November 17, 2004, for Windows with a soundtrack composed and performed by Swedish power metal band Machinae Supremacy, and the franchise expanded to Linux, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and PC across two games. Jets’n’Guns 2 released July 24, 2020, for Windows and August 26, 2020, for Nintendo Switch, with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions following August 24, 2023.

Jets’n’Guns (2004)

Jets’n’Guns released November 17, 2004, for Windows, developed and published by Rake in Grass in Prague. The game is a side-scrolling shoot ’em up in which players pilot a spacecraft through increasingly intense stages, destroying waves of enemies while managing weapons, armor, and cooling systems. Between levels, an upgrade shop allows players to spend earned currency on improvements across maneuverability, speed, health and armor, and cooling capacity, as well as a free paint job system for cosmetic customization. The Atarix item, earned by destroying transport ships during missions, gives players chances to unlock crates containing additional rewards. Machinae Supremacy composed and performed over fifty minutes of original music for the game across a range of styles, with the soundtrack becoming closely associated with the game’s identity among its audience.

A Mac OS X version released April 19, 2006. Jets’n’Guns Gold, an expansion adding new content to the original game, released December 2006. Linux Game Publishing handled a Linux port, making the game available across all major desktop platforms of the era. Jets’n’Guns Gold arrived on Steam on February 5, 2014, following Rake in Grass’s successful application to the Steam Greenlight system in November 2012. A Nintendo Switch version released December 16, 2019.

Jets’n’Guns 2 (2020)

Jets’n’Guns 2 released July 24, 2020, for Windows and August 26, 2020, for Nintendo Switch, with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions following August 24, 2023. The sequel follows a lone pilot tasked with facing an unknown powerful entity from another dimension that has entered the galaxy and begun wiping out all sentient life, with the divided nations of the galaxy unable to coordinate a response. Gameplay builds directly on the original’s structure with the same level-to-upgrade-shop loop, ship building system, and Machinae Supremacy soundtrack, while expanding the enemy variety, weapon options, and level scope to take advantage of the sixteen years of development knowledge between the two entries. The ship building system in the sequel allows a wider degree of customization than the original, with the game’s marketing describing it as freedom of ship building like in no other game before.