Dive. Kill. Bank the streak. Die. Come back meaner.

NULLGATE is a fast, crunchy first-person roguelite with a PS1 heart: every arena is generated at runtime, every enemy bullet can be dodged, and every kill-streak is money — if you live long enough to bank it.

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Arenas that never repeat

Rooms are generated the moment you walk into them. Layout, theme, lighting and density all roll separately, so one door leads to a bare concrete kill-box and the next to a rain-soaked scrapyard packed with cover. Nobody has played the room you are standing in.

Movement is the weapon

Dash, slide, vault, wall-kick, grapple. Every gun has a special that moves you as much as it damages — recoil-dash off a shotgun blast, reel yourself across the arena with the SMG. Standing still is the only real mistake.

A bullet-hell you can read

Enemy fire is slow, glowing and dodgeable on purpose. Nothing hitscans you from off-screen. Getting hit is your fault, and that is exactly the fun.

Guns with opinions

A pulse shotgun, a grapple SMG, a railgun that swallows an enemy volley and throws it back, a katana, the Void Launcher. You carry two and swap instantly — there is no tax for switching mid-fight.

Elites that change the fight

Nine stacking affixes. Elites raise alarms, pincer you, flush you out of cover, enrage as they die — or turn on each other and let you watch.

Die forward

Every run feeds the Neural Rig back at the Underdock, a scrappy hub with a crew that remembers your last death and will not let you forget it either. Spend what you banked, take a contract, unlock a weapon, dive again.

Kael is waiting

A multi-phase boss at the end of the run. He has been told about you.

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How to play

Clear the arena, pick a door, go deeper. Kills feed your multiplier — keep moving and keep killing to grow the streak, and it is banked as the money you spend between rooms and back at the hub. Die and the run ends, but the Underdock remembers.

Five things the game will not tell you yet:

• Enemy bullets are slow and glowing on purpose — weave through them, do not trade with them.
• Dashes, slides and wall-kicks are not just escape tools; movement keeps your streak alive.
• Out of ammo? Supply crates restock the moment you run dry. Sprint, do not sulk.
• Read the elite affixes before you commit to a fight.
• The shrine doors after a clear are opt-in dares. Greed is a choice.

Controls

Everything is remappable, on keyboard/mouse and gamepad.

Action	Keyboard	Gamepad
Move	WASD	Left stick
Jump / vault / wall-kick	Space	A / Cross
Dash	Left Shift	B / Circle
Slide	Left Ctrl	R3
Fire	Left mouse	RT
Weapon special	Right mouse	LT
Melee	F	RB
Reload	R	X / Square
Swap weapon	X	L3
Active augment	Q	LB
Interact / leave	E	Y / Triangle
Choices / shop	1–5	D-pad
Pause	P	Start

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Current state of the build

Playable today: the complete loop — hub, generated rooms, boss, extract or die, upgrade, dive again. Runtime-generated arenas, five-plus weapons with their own specials, a two-gun loadout, elite enemies with stacking affixes, a multi-phase boss, the Underdock hub with crew, contracts, challenges and trophies, Neural Rig meta-progression, a tutorial, full remapping and gamepad support, English and Español.

Rough or in progress: a lot of rooms are deliberate greybox while the PS1 art pass lands. VFX and SFX polish comes after mechanics. Balance moves weekly — that is what this playtest is for. The in-game arena editor is experimental. Daily seeded runs, a codex and secret stashes are designed but not in yet.

Known quirks: on some Windows 11 machines the very first launch is vetoed once by Smart App Control — just launch again. Windows may also show a SmartScreen warning because the build is not code-signed yet: click More info → Run anyway, or install through the itch.io app.

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Tell me what broke

This build exists to be broken. What felt great, what felt unfair, where did you get lost, which weapon did you never touch? Every comment gets read. If you hit a crash, the log lives in Windows\fpsroguelite\Saved\Logs\ — paste it in a comment and I will dig in.

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Follow development

I post devlogs and Shorts every week on the messy process of building this: procedural levels, weapon feel, enemy AI, boss fights, and the bugs along the way.

YouTube · X · TikTok · Instagram

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En español

NULLGATE es un roguelite en primera persona, rápido y crocante, con el amor de la PS1: cada arena se genera en tiempo real, cada bala enemiga se puede esquivar, y cada racha de kills es plata — si sobrevivís lo suficiente para bancar la toma. El juego está completo en español: cambiá el idioma en el menú de opciones.