PewRun
Wishlist on Steam

Dark 2D run and gun · New York

A whole city against you.

A tiny green alien, a crashed saucer and one rainy New York night. Run, jump and shoot your way home, across a city where everything is giant.

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  • Run and gun
  • Hand-drawn
  • PC · Steam
  • English · Português

Psst: click the scene. Pew shoots back.

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The game

Tiny alien. Giant city.

A flying saucer crashes into a New York gutter. Out climbs Pew, a small green alien in a dark grey hoodie, with a little plasma pistol. PewRun is a dark, hand-drawn run and gun where every object on the street becomes a weapon, a shelter or a path.

Genre
2D run and gun with platforming
Campaign
Chapters across New York
Setting
New York, at night, in the rain
Platform
PC, on Steam

Design pillars

Built on five ideas

  1. Small vs. giant

    Scale is everything: a camera at ground level, enormous objects and ordinary creatures that turn into epic bosses.

  2. Run-and-gun

    Run, jump and shoot without stopping. Readable patterns, punchy weapons and bosses you will remember.

  3. A city that reacts

    Every object in the play space does something: it gets pushed, rolls, floats, burns, conducts or lights up.

  4. Light and water

    Dramatic light and real-time reflections are the visual signature, and they are game mechanics too.

  5. Dark, with a heart

    The world is hostile and melancholic, but Pew is expressive and charming without saying a word.

Story

One stormy night over Manhattan

Concept art: the crashed saucer smoking in a puddle, with Pew climbing out of the hatch.
Concept art

The crash

Lightning finds the saucer

Pew is flying a small scout saucer when lightning strikes. It falls out of the storm into an alley on the Lower East Side, and the mothership goes silent.

Concept art: Pew in a dark sewer canal lit by green glows.
Concept art

The thief

Something takes the core

Before the smoke clears, a sewer rat drags the saucer's energy core underground. Getting it back is Chapter 1.

Concept art: Pew shooting on a rainy New York sidewalk, next to a giant hydrant.
Concept art

The way home

A whole city in the way

Even with the core back, the transmitter is wrecked and its missing parts are scattered across the city. Neighborhood by neighborhood, Pew heads for the highest point in New York to send a signal home.

To Pew, a cockroach is a tank, a rat is a monster and a puddle is an ocean.

Dark, lonely and tense, with quiet visual humor in Pew's reactions. No long dialogue: the city tells the story.

Gameplay

Try Pew

This is the Gutter, the first stretch of Chapter 1, running in your browser with the game's own sprites, layout and moves. It plays itself until you take over.

Loading the gutter…

Controls

  • ADRun
  • SpaceJump, hold to go higher
  • JClickShoot
  • WSAim up or down
  • ShiftDash
  • CtrlLock aim
  • QSwitch weapon

Tip: grab the glowing capsule over the water.

On a phone, the buttons show up once you tap the scene.

Web version of the prototype. Enemies, usable objects and the final polish are still on the way.

Arsenal

Capsules from the saucer

Pew's weapons broke loose in the crash and are scattered across the city in capsules. He carries two at a time, and picking up the same capsule again levels it up, up to 3.

Starting weapon

Blaster

Fast, straight orange shots with endless ammo. It lights up everything it flies past.

Fire rate
Spread
Reach
First capsule · 1.2 Sidewalk

Spreader

A fan of five shots that knocks down several light objects at once.

Fire rate
Spread
Reach

Four more capsules

More weapons are waiting somewhere in the city, and each one plays with the world.

  • Burns
  • Shocks
  • Bounces
  • Pierces

Chapter 1 bosses

Ordinary creatures, epic fights

Every heavy attack is announced by a glow, a sound and a pause. The challenge comes from the pattern, not from surprise.

Concept art: One-Eyed Crusty, a huge cockroach with one glowing amber eye, under a dumpster.
Mini boss · 1.4 Garbage Alley

One-Eyed Crusty

An old, armored cockroach

Her shell is cracked and scarred. The left eye is blind and milky; the right one glows amber. Stay on her blind side to hit the crack in her shell, but careful: she hears every shot.

Phases

  1. Charge

    Runs straight ahead and slams into walls. A matchbox pushed into her path stuns her.

  2. Cracked shell60%

    Leaps and lands in shockwaves, and calls in little roaches.

  3. Frenzy25%

    Climbs the wall and drops from the ceiling. The light of a match throws her off.

Reward Double jump

Concept art: the Sewer King, a colossal rat with red eyes, in a flooded sewer chamber.
Boss · 1.7 King's Chamber

The Sewer King

A colossal sewer rat

Matted fur, a torn ear, yellow teeth and red eyes. The saucer's energy core hangs from his necklace of trash, in a flooded arena of floating caps, bottles and foam.

Phases

  1. Hunt

    Runs along the banks, lunges and sweeps the water with his tail. Jump the waves.

  2. Flood65%

    Hits the floodgate and the water rises. He dives, and his reflection gives away where he will surface.

  3. Fury30%

    Brings trash down from the ceiling. Shoot the hanging lamp into the water and he gets the shock.

Reward The energy core

Concept art: ordinary New York creatures at Pew's scale.

The streets are crawling

  • Soldier antsPatrol in a line and call for backup when they spot Pew.
  • WaspsFly in arcs and fire their stingers from above.
  • CockroachesFast, swarm in the dark, and run from the light.
  • Small ratsTough charges, and they swim well.
  • FliesZigzag around and spit goo that slows Pew down.

Chapter 1

The Fall

Lower East Side, on a stormy night. From the crashed saucer in the gutter down to the depths of the sewer.

Length
25 to 35 minutes
Mini boss
One-Eyed Crusty
Boss
The Sewer King
Reward
Double jump and the energy core

1.0

Opening

The crashed saucer

The lightning, the fall, the splash. Pew stumbles out of the hatch between sparks and green light, grabs the blaster and learns to move inside the wreck.

The city awaits

Chapter 1 is only the beginning. The campaign crosses New York, neighborhood by neighborhood, up to the highest point in the city.

Visual identity

Hand-drawn, rain-soaked

Hand-drawn 2D, inspired by Contra III and Hollow Knight, with its own characters and world. Thin ink outlines, flat colors with soft shading and strong silhouettes, in a New York seen from the curb.

Pew's character sheet: standing, running and shooting, and a portrait.
Concept art

Devlog

From the devlog

I'm Dodz, and I'm making PewRun. This is where I write down how it is going: what worked, what broke, and how I use AI along the way, without hiding it.

All posts

3 min read

The gutter is wet

The first real stretch of Chapter 1: seven layers of depth, painted lights turned into real ones, water that reflects the screen and a light rain.

  • #levels
  • #lighting
  • #water

2 min read

Pew pew, in eight directions

Aiming, weapons as data, bolts that never skip through walls and a script that finds the tip of the blaster in every frame.

  • #shooting
  • #weapons

2 min read

Making a tiny alien feel good

Coyote time, jump buffering, a dash with one air charge and ledge grabs: the numbers behind Pew's movement.

  • #movement
  • #game-feel

Coming to Steam

Help Pew get home

PewRun is coming to PC on Steam, with a Chapter 1 demo planned. The Steam page and the mailing list open soon. Until then, the devlog tells how the game is being made, one rainy night at a time.

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