Nanobot Nautilus — Playable Browser Demo & Build Breakdown

A retro shoot-em-up set inside the human bloodstream, where you pilot a medical nanobot clearing pathogens while the patient's vital signs hang in the balance.

The Idea

You fly a therapeutic nanobot through a continuously scrolling vessel, destroying viruses and bacteria, dodging clots and plaque, collecting compounds, upgrading your weapon and fighting a disease boss at the end of each vessel.

What makes it work for a pharma and biotech audience is that the mechanics mirror real therapeutic concepts. Weapons are drug classes. Killing blood cells raises a toxicity gauge that behaves like real drug clearance.

Under The Hood

RENDERING

PixiJS 8 with WebGL, a multi-layer parallax system per vessel, and a custom CRT scanline and vignette pass over the whole scene.

ARCHITECTURE

Hand-rolled scene manager, object pools, collision layer and particle system in TypeScript, so every system is explicit and editable.

WEAPONS

Four drug-class weapons: Pulse, Spread, Missile and Beam. Each levelling to 3. Overdrive option for destroying all enemies on screen.

BOSSES

Five named disease bosses, each its own class behind a shared interface. With destructible sub-parts and chained explosion sequences.

AUDIO

Rate-limited voice call-outs with burst de-duplication, so the announcer never stacks on itself during a heavy wave.

PERSISTENCE

Per-vessel best rank and high score saved to localStorage, driving the progression locks on the vessel-select screen.

Where It Stands

All five vessels are playable with their bosses, weapon progression, the toxicity and resistance systems, Overdrive, and per-vessel ranking. Vessels unlock in order, so a first-time visitor starts in the Capillary.

It's an ongoing personal project rather than a commercial release. Showcasing the ability to build a complete game in a web browser, with a custom engine, and a fully playable experience that runs on desktop and mobile.