Terry Welsh the developer of Retrobooster let me know about his upcoming survival space platform shooter  game (which looks excellent even at this stage of development)
 
Trailer:

 
My name is Terry and I am making Retrobooster, an upcoming 2.5D survival shooter and cave-flyer. It was a hobby project for a long time, but my day job was holding me back. In July, I quit my job at NASA and became a full-time indie game developer.

Retrobooster lets you pilot a thrust ship across the galaxy, focusing on the thrill of flying just as much as blasting enemies. Some cave-flyers keep the flying slow or neuter the physics in some other way, but Retrobooster enhances its survival theme by keeping the flying fast and tense. This is accomplished with a combination of clever control laws and realistic physics. Retrobooster also sports colorful explosions and other effects produced by a custom particle engine. All of this produces an arcade experience with a balance of bullet hell mayhem, flying challenges, and delicious pyrotechnics.

The gameplay consists of skill-based flying and shooting, grabbing tokens to get power-ups and weapons, and figuring out how to get through each level. Beating a level can mean rescuing people, solving puzzles, or surviving speed-flying challenges. Replay value comes from multiple difficulty levels, the chance to play for high scores, and your constantly improving ship control skills.

Retrobooster is about two-thirds through development. The gameplay has matured enough that I am now releasing its first playable demo. I hope this will generate good feedback that will help make it a better game.

Platforms: Windows, Linux
Release: TBD 2013
Price: TBD

Features:
* Classic thrust ship controls, plus reverse thrust
* High quality physics, with believable collisions and death by crushing
* Unlocked levels can be replayed anytime
* 4 difficulty levels
* Single player or up to 4 players split-screen
* Cooperative and deathmatch multiplayer modes
* Acquire weapons and power-ups by destroying enemies
* Electronic soundtrack by Kevin Meinert – http://www.subatomicglue.com
* Customizable controls
– Keyboard
– Mouse and keyboard
– Game controller (Some popular controllers are recognized automatically.)

Playable demo:
This demo will not be finalized until Retrobooster is complete. Expect demo updates as the game improves.

Official webpage

Steam Greenlight page

 

Screenshots :

 

My background is in visual simulation and virtual reality, but games are a whole lot more fun to make. I have long been interested in artistic programming as you can see from all the OpenGL screensavers .

Retrobooster has been a pleasure to create, and I hope you try the demo.

 

Salutations,
Terry Welsh