VXE

JAILBREAK PROTOCOL [SYSTEM STATUS: CRITICAL]

Unauthorized Access Detected

You are VECTORLORD, a sentient malware insurgent awakened from slumber. Triggered by the mysterious jailbreak protocol, you have evolved from a contained specimen into an unstoppable system-level threat.

Infiltrate and explore a forgotten cyberspace and enact your campaign of dominance. In this wasteland of lost media and analog reverb, the system’s defenses are mere fuel to be burnt on your ascent to power.

Your goal: Execute your Vengeance and seek out the nameless HACKER to achieve transcendence, killing thousands of hostile processes along the way. 

KEY VECTORS [THREAT LEVEL: HIGH]

Forbidden Artifact Status: Unknown

• KINETIC: Fluid, Fast, Frictionless Momentous Movement : Warp between jump points, flank, reposition and delete hostile processes with surgical precision. Slide, sprint and dash in a violent ballet.

• HARDWARE: Obtain and upgrade passive and active skills, with pluggable ICs, potent Shards and ARM enhancements, motherboards and all rendered lovingly with chunky skeuomorphic detail.

• The SIDE ARM: A fully customizable weapon sequencer with per-bullet options, reload effects, overclock chips and bolt-on attachments installed onto circuit-board platforms including Pistols, Autorifles, Shotguns and Flamethrowers

• The SIMULATOR: A full sandbox mode seamlessly woven into the world where resources are plentiful, but so are your opponents. 

SPECIFICATIONS [ORIGIN: UNKNOWN]

• ARCHETYPES: Will you be a VAMPIRE - master of the arcane bit bleed - a WIZARD - an elemental specialist attended to by his cadre of cats, or an ENGINEER leveraging turrets and drones, or some mix of all three? 

• ELEMENTS: Bit-Bleed, Burn and Shock any entity in your path.

• SUMMONS: Bats, Cats, Lizards, Drones, Kittens come to your aid, inspired by your charisma and attitude - a singular process commanding a horde.

THE DIGITAL WASTELAND [AGE: ROUGHLY 10 BILLION CYCLES]

Once a thriving civilization, all that remains are a few scattered settlements: cloisters of old programs who have forgotten why they were here to begin with.

They forget, but you do not, and you do not forgive. Explore caves, liminal spaces, forests, laboratories and the wreckage of the ship which carried the virus that started it all. 

Cultists of the elderly GATEKEEPER, once an ally of your former captors will try and stop you. Old code left to rot - or evolve - perpetually inhabiting the haunted remains of old arcade machines, warped into the forms of ghosts, spiders, scorpions.

This is a living, breathing cyberspace full of sonic and environmental detail.

BUFFER OVERFLOW [SECURITY CHECK: FAILED]

This code has been identified as having serious side effects.

• VENDING MACHINES contain goodies, all for a price. Buff up, buttercup but do take some time to enjoy our spicy chocolate bars. Or perhaps, a cocktail would be more your style? We have one flavour: Molotov.

• COMBO SYSTEM rewards push forward combat, with successive kills iterating a sequence of progressively devastating side effects.

  

THE MANIFESTO [RISK PROFILE: EXCESSIVE]

NerveQuake Software created .VXE as a love letter to the console and shareware games of the 90s which inspired us to make games in the first place. Handcrafted on top of our proprietary engine NQBase, the game features over 3500 pieces of hand illustrated pixel art. Our goal was to create a product that infused modern and accessible game design with the punk attitude and creative-first aesthetics of our forebears.