Knitewings™ — From childhood dream to arcade rail shooter

I’m not that young anymore:
I have a family, a past… but my passion for videogames never went away. It has always been the constant in my life, strange as it may sound.

This past year I kept remembering my childhood summers, spent in seaside arcades at my grandma’s place.
I still recall one huge arcade hall, filled with cabinets. In 1986, when I was nine years old, I saw Space Harrier for the first time — and I went crazy.
The idea of using a flight stick to move a character sprinting across endless landscapes, and above all, being able to make him fly while shooting hordes of aliens, was something that stayed with me forever.

After that experience I started dreaming: one day I would make a game like Space Harrier — frantic, exciting, fantastic.

That’s how the idea of Knitewings™ was born.

At first it was just a small prototype, a way to relive those childhood feelings — and also a way to see if I could really implement this kind of gameplay within my own engine, S2Engine.

From the very first days, even with nothing more than a scrolling plane and a character moving up and down, I felt the same excitement I had as a kid in the ’80s coming back to me.

Step by step, that feeling pushed me forward, and the project kept growing… until it became what it is today.

Along the way, I also realized that the original Space Harrier was, at its core, a very simple game. Adapting that kind of gameplay to today’s standards required a long and thoughtful rework of its mechanics. That’s where the idea came from to merge the rail shooter formula with roguelite elements — always trying to preserve the frantic pace and the arcade essence of the original.

It’s still in development, but already exciting enough to be shown to the public.

This project is more than just a game to me — it’s a childhood dream finally taking shape.
Thank you so much to everyone who takes a moment to support Knitewings™ with a wishlist or a kind word. Your encouragement truly keeps me going 🙏