By Aimee Rogers 
Raw Fury has announced Appulse, a new roguelite that combines top-down shooting with pinball-inspired movement mechanics. It’s a premise that’s difficult to ignore.
Rather than controlling your ship through traditional movement systems, you’ll navigate the battlefield using flippers and weapon recoil. Every shot not only damages enemies, but also pushes your ship across the arena, turning movement and combat into the same decision. That simple idea changes everything.
In most shooters, positioning and attacking are separate actions. In Appulse, they’re directly connected. Firing at an enemy might help you survive the current encounter, but it could also send you drifting into danger if you’re not paying attention.
Developed by Le Rado, the game combines those physics-driven mechanics with roguelite progression, allowing players to unlock new perks and experiment with different builds between runs. As with most roguelites, the goal is to gradually create stronger and more effective combinations while pushing further with each attempt.
What makes Appulse stand out is how heavily it seems to commit to its central idea. The entire game appears to be built around mastering the relationship between movement, momentum, and combat rather than simply using physics as a novelty.
Whether it can fully deliver on that promise remains to be seen, but it’s certainly one of the more distinctive roguelites currently on the horizon.
Steven Andrew