Time Stopping Bullet Heaven - Moon Watch Announced

Jaspel, the development team behind Backpack Hero, has had a lot of success. I’m a huge fan of Backpack Hero myself, and seeing the small team find appreciation and success with their work has been satisfying. Now, their next game looks to tackle another of my favorite genres, the Horde Survival (or Bullet Heaven) genre.

Moon Watch is Jaspel’s next game. It is a Horde Survival Rogue-like with a time-stop mechanic and deck-building elements. Sounds complex right? Well, the team seems to have been inspired by Slay the Spire, Vampire Survivors, and surprisingly, Superhot. Here’s what the press release says about Moon Watch:

“After the success of Backpack Hero (0.5 million units sold), the developers are back with a new project that combines tactical survival gameplay with strategic deck-building. Unlike typical horde survival games, Moon Watch has a unique, sequential flow: move, stop, strategize, and act.

The game encourages thoughtful planning, where you freeze time, carefully choose your next move, and then unleash powerful combos to survive the waves of enemies. This loop of action and pause sets it apart from traditional, more frenetic bullet-hell experiences.

In Moon Watch, you start as a badass vampire hunter disguised as a nun, wielding advanced time-stop technology to fight hordes of vampires, ghouls[,] and undead. Your mission: defeat the Vampire Lord on the dark side of the moon. Every second counts, and every decision could mean the difference between survival and defeat.”

Jasper Cole, lead developer at Jaspel commented on the inspiration behind Moon Watch, stating: “We love Vampire Survivors and Slay the Spire, so combining them seemed like the natural thing to do. But we struggled with how to bring it all together until we looked at Superhot – that time-stop mechanic, where the world pauses when you stop moving, was the missing piece. We’re curious to see if players like it and what we can improve, so we’re inviting everyone to give the demo a try.”

Jakub Radkowski, the CEO of Pretty Soon (Backpack Hero and Moon Watch’s publisher) commented as well, stating: “Jasper, Calvin, and Felix are quietly pushing the boundaries of indie gaming. With Backpack Hero, they invented a whole new genre – the inventory management Rogue-like.

There was nothing like it before. The game sold really well and Jaspel could have easily made a sequel or something similar. But instead… they invented a new genre again. We’re super excited that they came to us for a second time after our work together on Backpack Hero.”

Moon Watch has a free demo now on Itch.io, and you can also wishlist it now on Steam. Surprisingly, the Steam page says there’s going to be a Q4 2024 release date for Moon Watch. I’m not sure if that means they’re planning an Early Access launch at that point, or if it is just that far along in development. Either way, I’m very excited to see what happens with Moon Watch.