PULSE//ZERO — Northforge Interactive

Watch

In motion

Play now

Get PULSE//ZERO

The public beta is live on itch.io — pay-what-you-want, Windows and Linux. Grab it, play offline, and tell us what killed you.

Read the grid

PULSE//ZERO starts from a single idea: the arena should fight back. The Living Grid is a simulation layer beneath the action — it carries your fire, reacts to enemy density, and surges in time with the music. Learning to read it is the difference between surviving a wave and conducting it.

Simple mechanics, surprising depth

You move, you aim, you fire. That is the whole input surface. Everything else — the chains, the surges, the near-misses — emerges from how those inputs collide with the grid and the soundtrack. It is designed to be picked up in seconds and chewed on for months.

Built for the Deck

PULSE//ZERO is a Steam Deck-first design: readable at handheld scale, tuned for controller, and respectful of battery and thermals. What plays well on the Deck plays well everywhere.

Latest build

v0.5.0 — release

2 August 2026

EVOLUTION — no two runs play the same. The Run Director now picks a Combat Profile and a Sector that rewrite the rules of the arena, backed by eleven new enemies, four Elite variants and two new bosses.

Combat Profiles — the Director picks a run personality: Pursuit, Fortress, Corruption, Extermination, Swarm or Elite Hunt
Sectors bend the rules of the whole run — Overclock, Blackout, Titan Graveyard, Signal Storm, Fractured, Endless Pulse
Eleven new enemies, each a decision rather than another body
Elite variants — Veteran, Corrupted, Volatile, Phase-Shifted
Two new bosses — SIGNAL WARDEN and HIVE QUEEN
Black holes fuse into a supermassive well, can be destroyed, and erupt Void Spawn
Relative (trackpad) aiming and an optional aim cursor for mouse play
EVOLUTION leaderboard records the conditions behind every score — and filters by them

Full changelog →

What makes it tick

Features

Twin-stick arcade combat
Reactive Living Grid
Power-ups that reshape your run
Dynamic synth soundtrack
Steam Deck-first design

Gallery

Screenshots

A gravity well warps the neon grid as the player fights around it — Space bends around a gravity well — lead your shots and don’t get swallowed.

The player ship fans a spread of fire across the arena — Spread fire fans across the arena as the multiplier climbs.

The Juggernaut mini-boss sends shockwave rings across the grid — The Juggernaut mini-boss pounds the grid with expanding shockwaves.

The Warden boss sweeps a beam across a warped arena — The Warden sweeps a beam across a warped arena — read the tell, punish the opening.

An asteroid field drifts across the arena — An asteroid field drifts in as cover and hazard both.

PULSE//ZERO rendered in the amber Forge display mode — Forge display mode — one of thirteen full-screen visual reinterpretations.

PULSE//ZERO rendered in green wireframe Vector display mode — Vector mode strips the arena back to pure wireframe green.

PULSE//ZERO rendered in the blue Blueprint display mode — Blueprint mode re-skins the whole game in schematic blue.

Follow PULSE//ZERO development

We build in the open. Read the devlog for milestone updates and design notes.

Read the Devlog