CONTROLS: CONTROLLER DEFAULT
All controls can be changed in the Control Configuration of the settings menu. For more information see the Menu section of the manual.
MOVEMENT: left analog stick for 360 degrees of movement or directional pad for 8-way movement
SHOOTING: X button
GIGA SHOT: Don’t shoot for more than 5 seconds, then shoot to release a giant blast.
SECONDARY (usually dash)/ RETRACT SATELLITES: A button
SPECIAL (usually bomb): B button
BIGGER SPECIAL (usually bomb): Hold the special key or button for a second.
MOVE SHOW: Y button
PAUSE: Start button
MENU NAVIGATION: left analog stick or directional pad
MENU SELECT: A button
MENU BACK: B button
CONTROLS: KEYBOARD DEFAULT A
All controls can be changed in the Control Configuration of the settings menu. For more information see the Menu section of the manual.
MOVEMENT: WSAD keys
SHOOTING: Spacebar
GIGA SHOT: Don’t shoot for more than 5 seconds, then shoot to release a giant blast.
SECONDARY (usually dash)/ RETRACT SATELLITES: N key
SPECIAL (usually bomb): B key
BIGGER SPECIAL (usually bomb): Hold the special key or button for a second.
MOVE SLOW: V key
PAUSE: keyboard: M key
MENU NAVIGATION: WSAD keys
MENU SELECT: Enter key
MENU BACK: Escape key
CONTROLS: KEYBOARD DEFAULT B
All controls can be changed in the Control Configuration of the settings menu. For more information see the Menu section of the manual.
MOVEMENT: arrow keys
SHOOTING: X key
GIGA SHOT: Don’t shoot for more than 5 seconds, then shoot to release a giant blast.
SECONDARY (usually dash)/ RETRACT SATELLITES: Shift key
SPECIAL (usually bomb): C key
BIGGER SPECIAL (usually bomb): Hold the special key or button for a second.
MOVE SLOW: CTRL key
PAUSE: keyboard: Escape. Escape key
MENU NAVIGATION: arrow keys
MENU SELECT: Enter key
MENU BACK: Escape key
GAMEPLAY
Playing is easy. Destroying foes will send out cash to collect. Each destroyed foe will also turn their projectiles into cash.
In terms of defense, if bullets hit your canopy window, you will take damage. Take enough damage and you will explode. Different vessels have different sized canopies. If an enemy touches your vessel, your vessel will explode immediately.
At the start of each life, the vessel gets three seconds of invulnerability from its shield. When a life is lost, you will respawn if you have any remaining lives. If you don’t have any more lives, you will use a continue to restart the level. If you have no more continues, then you will have to restart the game.
Each campaign is seven levels long with each level culminating in a giant boss battle. You’ll also find two bonus levels where you’ll collect fuel in each campaign.
SATELLITES: OVERVIEW
Your vessel will also have two satellites that both move at random and fire random streams of projectiles. These satellites will take damage and get destroyed over time. This means they can be great defensive barriers against enemy projectiles, but if you can safely retract them into your vessel to protect them, you should do it to spare these powerful weapons. To safely retract them, hold the secondary (usually dash) button or key. The only way to replenish satellites is to lose a life. The more damage they take, the redder they will get until they finally explode.
SATELLITES: CONFIGURATIONS
Default: Will keep your satellites at the left and right side of the player’s vessel while aiming forward.
Reverse: Carries the satellites at the side of the player while aiming behind.
Diagonal: Keeps the satellites at the side, but aims them out away from the player.
Circle: Aims the satellites forward while revolving them around the player.
Drag: Drags the satellites around to aim in the opposite direction of where the player is moving.
Spray: Carries the satellites at the side of the player while aim rotates left and right.
Clock: Satellites will swirl around the vessel with their aim outward away rather than in a specific direction.
Front: Carries the satellites in front of the player and aims them forward.
Back: Carries the satellites behind the player and aims them backward.
Y: Carries the satellites in front of the player, but aims them at a diagonal.
X: Carries the satellites diagonally behind the player and aims them outward.
Tri: Carries the satellites diagonally behind the player and aims them forward and outward.
Pull: Satellites shadow the player, while shooting forward.
SATELLITES: SHOOTING STYLES
Each satellite can have a variety of random shooting styles and random projectiles being fired.
Twin Bullets: Launches two bullets forward.
Quad Bullets: Launches four bullets forward.
Twin Homing: Launches two homing torpedoes forward.
Dual Bullets: Dual bullets has a wide spread of two bullets.
Dual Homing: Dual homing has a wide spread of two homing torpedoes.
Detector: Fires a single stream toward the nearest foe. Take note that the aim of the satellites using this style will always aim for the nearest enemy.
Flame Thrower: Lights enemies on fire that keeps damaging them.
MULTIPLAYER
Multiplayer can be setup in two different ways. Before starting a game and during a game. Before starting a game you can set the amount of players in the gameplay mode menu. From there you will select a campaign and then one-by-one, each player can join using their preferred control method whether its keyboard or game controller.
During gameplay, players can join by pressing a button on an unused controller or keyboard. From there they can select their vessel within a ten second time limit. Left and right on the controller or keyboard will cycle through unlocked vessels to play as.
In multiplayer, if a player loses all of their lives, a game over will display on their HUD for ten seconds. After that time, if it’s on one of the lowest three difficulties, the player can rejoin the game to keep playing. There is still danger if all players lose all their lives at the same time. The game over screen will appear and the players will have to restart the level.
When there are two or more players, the vessel color will change to indicate which player is which. The first player is blue, the second is red, the third is yellow and the fourth is green.
GAMEPLAY HUD
In the center of the gameplay screen at the top is a high score and best chain. To the top left is the first player’s HUD. The second player is on the top right, the third player is on the bottom left and the fourth player is on the bottom right.
When it comes to the player’s personal HUDs, there are three lines of text. The two lines that are always there are the player’s score and current chain of enemies destroyed. The third line on top of those two is a notification. This will let a player know what item they’ve just collected, a game over, when it’s time to select a vessel and join the game. Next to the text is a visual representation of the vessel that the player is piloting.
Players and foes can both overlap with the gameplay HUD where the HUD will become transparent to still see what’s beneath. These HUDs can be turned off in the settings menu.
Beyond the player HUDs are circular HUDs around the player. These HUDs are invisible, but once you take damage the inner circular HUD will reveal itself to show how much health the player has. Beyond that is an outer circle that keeps track of the player’s chain timer. This outer circle will only appear if the player’s chain timer has almost expired. To keep the chain timer going, destroy enemies or collect cash. This is explained more in the items overview.
When a player’s giga shot is fully charged, their player color hue will outline their vessel. There is also a sound cue that will help notify the player.
Enemies reveal their health bars when taking damage. This can be enabled and disabled in the settings menu along with damage numbers when the foes take damage.
OBJECTIVE
Your objective is to stay alive while accumulating the most points you can.
GAMEPLAY MODES
There are a few modes of play. Arcade will set you up on normal difficulty with five lives and five continues. Kids Mode is the same Arcade, but on an easier setting. Play custom mode will let you create your own difficulty and if you want pacifist mode which disallows your ability to shoot. The final mode is instruction, which is a helpful tutorial.
The difficulties in custom from easiest to toughest are: Power Trip, Arcade, Normal, Tough, Hard, and Nightmare. Each rise in difficulty will be a bonus score at the end of each level.
There are six different types of campaigns. The first three Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic take you through seven hand made levels each making for twenty-one levels in all. Each campaign includes two bonus levels to collect fuel. Beyond that, Forever Abyss has randomly generated waves of enemies inspired from the first three campaigns. The Daily Campaign is like Forever Abyss, but it only changes once per day and everyone globally will play the same Forever Abyss that day. Boss Rush is as it sounds with all the bosses back to back.
Before playing, you’re taken to a quick instruction that will give beginners a brief instruction that informs them how to play based on their control preset. To change the controls, please consult the Control Configuration in the menus section of the manual.
SCORING
Score is added for each item collected, and each enemy destroyed. Destroying enemies will increase a chain and reset the five second chain timer. The higher the chain, the more points will be earned for each enemy destroyed. If you’re in passive mode, you can gain points for having enemy projectiles graze your hull.
The higher the difficulty in Play Custom will multiply your score. More information can be researched in the Play Custom menu of the Menus section.
The game will keep track of all your high scores and which vehicles they were in. It will also keep track of a vehicle’s best score.
Depending on your difficulty, scores in increments of the following will reward with extra lives:
– 100,000
– 200,000
– 500,000
– 1,000,000
– 2,000,000
Getting extra lives in YOLO difficulty will only add a bonus score. There is only one life in YOLO difficulty.
COLLECTABLES: OVERVIEW
There are a few types of collectables in AquaNimble: weapons, power-ups, and bonus items worth cash.
Cash will spring from defeated foes in rings of stars and dollars. Each bit of cash will be added to your score and reset the chain timer. Bonus items such as fuel in the bonus levels will only accumulate to your score.
COLLECTABLES: POWER-UPS + CRATES
Before getting to the weapons, power-ups alter the way you shoot. They can make even the weakest weapons into an unstoppable force of destruction. For every 1,000 cash collected, a new power-up will drop. For the easiest mode Power Trip, half as much cash is required per drop.
Power-ups will drop in crates. These crates need to be opened by shooting them open.
FA: The flame added power-up will light enemies on fire from your shots.
+: Add stream will add an extra stream of projectiles such as one stream of projectiles turns into two. Four turns into five.
-: Add power comes at a price. Your projectiles will get larger and do more damage, but you will lose a stream. So two becomes one, and five becomes four.
*: Special: Adds another use of your special.
SH: Shield: Grant you four seconds of a shield making you invulnerable.
COLLECTABLES: WEAPONS
Weapons are numerous and they change the way you shoot. Getting a new weapon will wipe the power-ups obtained from the previous weapon:
E: Default Weapon: Restores the vessel’s original weapon.
?: Random Weapon: This is a randomly constructed weapon that will have a random amount of streams, projectiles, curvature, and strength. There is no telling what it will be, but if you feel lucky, you could end up with something surprisingly good.
SP: Standard Stream:
ST: Stream: A steady stream of projectiles forward that can melt through enemies.
W: W Shot: Fires six streams of projectiles.
H: Homing Torpedoes: Fires a single torpedo that seeks out foes to destroy them.
X: X Torpedoes: Fires four smaller torpedoes at an X angle that seeks foes.
V: V Shot: Fires four streams of projectiles.
D: Detector Stream: Fires a stream of projectiles at the nearest enemy. You might want to get closer to moving foes to make this weapon more accurate.
P: Power Shot: A powerful shot that fires slower than streams.
C: Fire Cracker Cannon: A giant projectile that launches out and explodes into dozens of smaller projectiles. Pressing the shoot button will detonate the fire cracker.
CH: Chainsaw: Throws cyber chainsaws forward at enemies.
CG: Chaingun: A powerful stream of projectiles that will send the vessel backward.
CS: Control Stream: A stream of projectiles that will aim left or right depending on which way your vessel is moving.
SCH: Swedish Chainsaw: Works just like the other chainsaw, but this throws axes.
LS: Laser Sword: Two laser swords are thrown out and return to the player.
U: Puncher Stream: A dual stream that will launch fists forward to punch foes left and right.
F: Flame Thrower: A glorious single flame that will light foes on fire.
I: Wiper Stream: A stream that will spray projectiles with a high cadence which will cover a lot of area, but be wildly inconsistent.
R: Ricochet Soccer Shot: A powerful shot that launches soccer balls that ricochet off foes toward other foes.
A: Wave Stream: A pair of short range streams that will curve outward.
N: Boomerang Stream: Launches multiple projectiles that return to the vessel.
FB: Force Ball Stream: Perhaps the strongest, but slowest projectile that arrows forward through enemies.
L: Lance Shot: A long laser lance that will pierce through foes and do damage as it pierces through.
M: Mono Shot: An explosive shot that will do splash damage within a small radius. There can only be one shot at a time.
S: Shotgun: A slow, wide blast of projectiles strong enough to move the vessel backward.
CU: Curve Stream: Four beams that extend from the sides of the vessel before curving forward.
B: Blaster: A wide shot that will bust through enemies.
SPECIALS: OVERVIEW
Specials can only be used a limited number of times, but they can be replenished through power-ups. Each vessel has its own special, but most of them have bombs as a special. Specials can be charged by holding the special button a second until the high powered special is released.
Bomb: A bit unglamorous, the bomb will destroy projectiles and enemies within a radius of your vessel.
Dragon: The dragon is an eternal being that launches from your vessel and will steer itself toward enemies to lance through them all while breathing fire.
Homing Cluster: A giant cluster of homing torpedoes that fires from your vessel and seeks out enemies to destroy.
Giga: It is a readily launched Giga shot that will pernitrate all foes with a powerful wide projectile. This Giga shot is the same as the vessel’s Giga shot that launches it.
8-Way: Eight wide beams are sprayed out from the vessel in a circle. The beams will curve and change trajectory to go after foes.
Wipe: Pushes energy waves from behind the player forward to damage walls of enemies.
Shield: This is the standard shield and provides impenetrable defense for a few seconds.
Healers: When in need of health, summon healers who come from behind the player’s ship and use medical tethers to replenish health.
UNLOCKING VESSELS AND SKINS
When you take a visit to the shipyard in the title screen, you’ll find a vast array of vessels and skins to unlock. To unlock them you’ll need tokens by playing the game and ranking-up. Each rank you go up will give you tokens from A – E class. The higher the class indicates the more difficult the ship is to use so A class would be a challenging ship while E class is geared more for beginners. To get these tokens, you’ll need to rank-up by playing the game. The more points you earn, the faster you’ll go up in rank and the more tokens you’ll earn.
As for skins, these are simple changes to the look of a vessel. The vessel will still perform and play the same, but it will look different. The new canopy of the skin will change where enemy projectiles can hit. S tokens are obtained by completing levels. The higher the level, the greater its value. For each accumulation of 25, you’ll obtain an S token.
FOES: SMALL
Small foes are those the size of a typical player vessel.
Sea Stars:
Defaulters:
Star Blades:
Arrowheads:
Stingrays:
Medics:
Crabs:
FOES: LARGE
Large foes are those larger than a typical player vessel. Larger foes have an 10x increased chance of dropping weapons. They will take far more damage and be far more dangerous than smaller foes.
Liners:
Launchers:
FOES: BOSS CLASS
Boss class foes come at the end of each level. Each boss has several patterns in random order. The level of difficulty indicates how many patterns will happen before the boss is defeated.
Predusa:
MENUS: TITLE SCREEN
The title screen menu contains things like play game, the shipyard shop, high scores, settings, and credits. Below the menu is a menu description and beneath that is are scrolling tips. At the bottom of the screen are control functions to confirm, go back, or exit depending on which menu you’re looking at.
The shipyard is the shop where you’ll go to spend tokens to purchase vessels and skins. High scores is a large archive of scores for each campaign and each level. Up to 100 high scores are kept for each campaign. If you’re logged into Steam, you can see online leaderboards along with how you rank compared to your friends on Steam.
When inside the Play Game menu, you’ll see modes like Play Arcade, Play Kids Mode, Play Custom, Level Select, and Instruction. Selecting Play Arcade and Play Kids Mode will take you to pick a campaign from Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic, Forever Abyss, Daily Campaign, and Boss Rush. For more information on these campaigns, please view the gameplay modes section of the manual.
MENUS: VESSEL SELECTIONS
If you’re about to play, you’ll get sent to the vessel selection menu. This is where players can join the game by either by pressing any button on a controller or key on the keyboard. At the bottom is a list of each vessel to play as. Above the list of vessels you’ll see the name, if you own it, the vessel’s best score, its description, and special. In the box you’ll see the vessel with its weapon shooting, and its canopy glowing red to let you know the only place its vulnerable to projectiles. Left and right will let you select different vessels. Pressing up or down will select skins. There is a key or button to change the controls to a preset you like.
Once all players have confirmed their selection, there is a three second countdown before takeoff, but you can always press a button or key to take off immediately. The three second countdown gives players a chance to back out and make their vessel selection again.
MENUS: SETTINGS & PAUSE
The Settings menu contains a large list of things like language, control configuration, screen options, music volume, sound volume, background brightness, enemy health bars, HUD opacity, show menu backgrounds, damage numbers, and enemy approach warnings.
Inside the Settings Menu is the Control Configuration that lets you reconfigure your controls for your controllers and keyboard. You can also turn rumble on or off. Inside the keyboard configuration are four presets you can assign for different players along with two default control schemes for the left of the keyboard and the right. The controller configuration also allows for four presets and the lone default control scheme.
Player color can be changed in the settings. Changing the color is noticeable in the vessel select screen and the in game font. However, the color of the vessel will only change when more than one player is playing the game.
When you pause while playing the game, you’re taken to the pause menu where you can set preset control schemes, restart the game, restart the level, visit the settings, high scores, or quit. Visiting the settings menu while playing the game disables a few things such as screen style. Multiplayer games can have a player drop out via the pause menu.
MENUS: GAME OVER & END LEVEL
The Game Over and End Level menus are similar to one another because they reveal the score you’ve gained and that gets added to a rank meter. Once the rank meter is full, the player is bestowed a token that can be used to purchase a ship in the shipyard. Both menus will also display the player scores and the vessel’s high scores to see how they compare. If the player has achieved a new high score for their vessel in that campaign, it will flash below the vessel’s high score.
The Game Over menu displays a menu on where to go next whether its restart the game, exit to the title, or continue at the start of the level or the boss depending on the difficulty. The vessel select + continue will do the same, while letting the players re-select their vessels. The End Level display shows the player more stats and statistics about how well they did during the level.
CREDITS
A game by: Geoffrey Johnson
With sprites from: Ievgen Khomenko
And music composed by: Mario Laborde (PurpleFreezer)
Extensive beta-testing by: Mapsking
Turkish translation: zulmetefza
SUPPORT INFORMATION
DRINKING NAILS, LLC.
Customer Support
Customer Support is available in English only.
DrinkingNails 