PHPM

About This Game

The Promethium armada is headed to Earth, leaving a toxic trail of destruction in its wake. Commander Braybrook, it is your mission to take up the experimental deep space fighter and stop the armada before it reaches us – YOU ARE OUR ONLY HOPE!

INSPIRED BY C64 AND ARCADE CLASSICS

Inspired by classic Commodore 64 and arcade games, Promethium is a hard-as-nails retro inspired side-scrolling shoot-em-up that takes place over numerous levels that get harder and harder. If you’re after a nice calm casual game, this isn’t it!

Gameplay

Fly left and right over the Promethium armada ships. They have shield generators protecting them. Hover over a shield generator to hack and disable it. Once all the shield generators are disabled a self destruct code will be sent to the armada ship causing it to explode. Be careful though, the armada ships are guarded by a fleet of fighters!

Power-ups

Destroy enemy ships and collect the power pods they drop. These power pods are like cash, they allow you to buy power-ups.

The available power-ups are displayed at the bottom of the screen. The power-up you can buy is highlighted in orange. Every time you collect a power pod the next power-up becomes available to you. Some power-ups are single use, some are multiple and some are timed. Experiment to find your perfect combination.

Controls

Promethium can be played on a joypad or if you’re really brave and have the reflexes of a Ninja Cat then you can use a keyboard. I’d really recommend a Joypad though, this game is tough enough as it is.

Use any analog stick or the d-pad to control the experimental fighter, or in keyboard mode use WSAD or cursor keys to fly.

You can fire using any of the triggers, bumpers or the ‘B’ button on Xbox 360 or Xbox One controllers and the ‘O’ button on the Dualshock controller. If you are in keyboard mode you can press the space bar to fire.

You can buy the current power-up by pressing the ‘A’ button on Xbox 360 or Xbox One controllers and the ‘X’ button on the Dualshock controller. If you are playing using a keyboard then any key other than WSAD, Space or the cursor keys will allow you to buy the current power-up – I’d suggest the return key is a handy one.

Reviews

“Depression can be exceedingly hard to manage, bombarding those affected with a barrage of challenges that – left unchecked – can tear them apart. That’s the core concept behind UK indie developer Byron Atkinson-Jones’ upcoming shooter Promethium.”
Kotaku

“Side-scrolling shmup with some sweet cel-shaded art and a nice line in really gigantic-feeling spaceships in the background, in a way that reminds me faintly of the Red Dwarf intro credits. It’s fairly straightforward, being unashamedly a C64-inspired shmup rather than a wild and weird J-shmup-inspired piece, but that means it can get on with cranking up the difficulty and being a pure test of skill rather than bamboozling you with mechanics. Speaking as someone who only has occasional relationships with shmups and as such isn’t particularly motivated by difficulty, I did find it perhaps a little samey level-to-level, but it’s tight and I do love the model spaceship-like look.”
Rock Paper Shotgun