This gorgeous run-and-gun shooter is filled to the brim with game references, and it hits PS4 on April 18.

Man, I’ve been looking forward to this one: our award-winning creation Rise & Shine is coming to PS4 tomorrow courtesy of Adult Swim Games and (takes a deep breath) Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team!

It’s been a journey to get here, I can tell you that! We always take pride in giving our all to everything we do, and this was no exception. Rise & Shine is a labor of love, and we’re super happy knowing that all PS4 gamers can enjoy it.

I’m sure I could name a game you enjoyed that someone from our team of four worked on. We are seasoned devs who’ve worked on past hits like Plants vs. Zombies and Worms, and we put all that experience to good use in Rise & Shine.

In this game you control a kid named Rise who’s accidentally given Shine, a legendary, super-powerful gun, right in the middle of the bloodiest war his planet has ever seen. That planet is Gamearth: the once peaceful home to all classic videogame characters.

So you’ll need to be really brave and learn to use Shine’s different bullets and add-ons to advance through all the challenges waiting for you. And make no mistake: you’re going to die a lot! Gamearth is a ruthless world where those respawning powers of yours will come in handy.

Rise & Shine is a kind of 2D, side-scrolling run’n’gun. But not an ordinary one! You sure run and gun a lot, but we always like to add hot new sauce into our games, so you’ll find fun mechanics you haven’t seen before. Is a cover system a thing in side scrollers? Or RC Bullets? Not really, right? Well, they definitely add something extra — you’ll see.

We also took a lot of time making sure all the backgrounds in the game are real, hand-drawn masterworks, full of life and little details waiting to be discovered by anyone with a keen eye for Easter eggs and retro gaming references.

And of course, the intense soundtrack adds even more epicness to blasting Space Grunts to pieces and destroying their armada.

We made Rise & Shine as an honest love letter to the history of videogames; nothing more, nothing less. We had a blast during the three years of development and savored every little detail of this project as we made it. We really hope you enjoy the ride with us!

-Your Friends at Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team