Mothergunship demo teaches the finer points of gun-crafting

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The bullet-hell FPS Mothergunship is a game about making guns and firing guns being co-developed by the guy who made Tower of Guns. A taste of how those various gun parts will come together can now be had by way of a "Gun Crafting Range" demo that went live today on Steam.

The demo begins with a simple bit of gun-upgrading and a quick trip through the FPS gun range, but ramps up in a hurry with more and different attachments, and more and different things to shoot at. Guns become increasingly complex, dangerous, and ammo-hungry, and the need to balance raw firepower with energy conservation very quickly becomes apparent. I whipped this thing up, for instance (it's a terrible mess of a design, but I was in a hurry), and it's good for approximately 2.4 seconds of fire before it's dry.

Narration through the demo is provided by two characters, the Colonel, who comes off as sort of a semi-deranged game show host, and Chief Gungineer Wilkinson, who makes no secret of the fact that she's desperately bored and would rather be doing anything else. It's starts off fairly dry and dull but spins up into some serious weirdness, and it's actually pretty funny.

The demo obviously doesn't reflect the full game—the actual shooting bit, where you get to try out the guns you've created, is just a series of small arenas filled with various sorts of bots—but it's a promising start. The full Mothergunship doesn't have a release date yet but it's expected to be out sometime this year, and there's a site you can trip through at mothergunship.com.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.