The homebrew publisher Songbird Productions has announced it will be releasing a new 3D, multi-directional shoot 'em up for the Atari Jaguar in 2026.
Shape Shooter 2000, as the game is called, has players take control of a ship that is trapped inside a small cordon being pursued by a bunch of 3D shapes.
The goal of the game is basically to survive as long as you can to progress through the game's various zones and achieve the highest score possible, blasting away the various objects that are chasing you, and picking up various power-ups to further improve your ship.
It seems to have started life as a game jam project back in 2024, with its developer sjc initially creating the project for JagJam 2024. There it won four of the seven categories (Originality, Sound & Music, Playability, Replay Value), with this earlier version of the game eventually being made available online for free on itch.io. Now, though, it appears that Songbird Production has got on board to help further develop it into a fully-fledged game, with Songbird's Carl Forhan contributing some additional design elements that weren't present in the original version.
"Shape Shooter 2000 coming to the Jaguar in 2026!" Songbird Productions wrote yesterday on Twitter/X. "That makes it a futuristic, umm, retro shooter set in the, uhh... Past. Polygons, bullets, enemies, and a pumping soundtrack. What more could you possibly want?"
It also linked to a preview video, showcasing some of the differences players can expect from this latest iteration of the game.
Interestingly, this doesn't seem to be the only new project Songbird Productions is working on for next year either, with the publisher also contacting Cobra!, the creator of another JagJam 2024 game Operation Followthrough to release an enhanced version of that game next year on the Atari Jaguar.
Operation Followthrough is the game that swept up the other three JagJam categories that Shape Shooter 2000 didn't win, and is essentially a Virtua Cop/Time Crisis-style on-rails shooter.
What do you think? Are these enough to get you to dust off your Jaguar? Let us know in the comments!