Kip Kepler

About the game

Kip Kepler is a 2D action platformer in the spirit of the shareware jump-and-runs of the early 1990s, with its own world and characters. Kip is the most junior cadet of the Beacon Corps, the organisation that keeps the great beacons of the Spiral lit so that ships can find their way between the stars. When a machine syndicate called the Gloam shatters the four sector beacons, it falls to Kip to recover the prism shards, one episode at a time.

Each level is a maze of stations, caves, crystal caverns and planet surfaces. Collect every crystal to open the exit; an arrow at the edge of the screen points to the ones still missing nearby. Key cards open doors of their colour, switches move walls, breakable walls come down when their lowest block falls, and some walls turn out not to be walls at all. Treasure brings score and credits, which the Quartermaster turns into new weapons and armour between levels. There are nine science-fiction weapons, each with an alternate fire, 36 kinds of enemies and a boss at the end of every episode.

The game is generous with extras: a secret level per episode behind a hidden warp, radio messages from the Commodore before each mission, medals for time, treasure, taking no hits and finding the secrets, 40 awards, a logbook and a bestiary, high scores, time trials against your own ghost, a boss rush, daily and custom challenges, New Game+ after the credits and a level editor. Three difficulty levels and an assist mode (slower game, invulnerability, infinite ammunition) let everyone reach the end, and there are options for colour help and large text.

Tips

• Lost? Pause and open the map: it shows what you have explored and where crystals are still missing.
• Stuck somewhere you cannot climb out of? Pause and choose to go back to the last checkpoint.
• Hold fire with the blaster for a charged shot, and try every weapon's alternate fire: some open paths as well as enemies.
• Acid, lava, plasma and brine cost health rather than a life: you are thrown back out and can steer towards the shore.
• Pausing in the middle of a level keeps your place: "Continue" in the main menu picks up right there.

About this version

The author releases Kip Kepler for Windows and Linux. This page runs a browser version that we compile from the author's source code, with the changes a web page needs: the game fills the player, the "Quit" menu item is left out, rumble is off and the frame rate follows your screen. Progress, settings and the quick save are kept in your browser's storage, so clearing the site data erases them. The download is large (about 75 MB, mostly music), so the first load takes a while.

The author says how everything in the game was made: the sprites, tiles, sounds and fonts come from the game's own generators, while the music, the Commodore's voice and the story pictures were generated by the author with AI tools (ACE-Step, Qwen3-TTS and FLUX), all released with the game under the same license.

FAQ

Is it free? Yes. The game is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License 3.0. The complete source code of this version, including our changes, is linked on this page.

Is it in English? Yes, and in German: the game picks your browser's language, and you can change it in the options.

Can I use a gamepad? Yes. Connect it and press a button; the stick or d-pad runs, A jumps, X or B fires, Y uses the alternate fire and Start pauses.