Aerial_Knight's DropShot

Aerial_Knight describes this game as a “prototype,” and its AI looking visuals, garbage story and technical failures back all of that up. It’s hard to believe this is a Microsoft GAMEPASS GAME, given how little effort Aerial_Knight (not a solo developer: he has a team of 6 people) put into this. Don’t check this out of curiosity: this is a mobile game that is charging $20. No wonder Aerial_Knight hid the price for so many years. Aerial_Knight’s first job, according to interviews, was a 3D modeler of cars. He took this…”talent,” and decided he wanted to make videogames instead. Don’t be fooled by the branding: this isn’t a solo developer, it’s a team of…Aerial_Knights. In an interview with Ernestine Lyons (who is FANTASTIC), Aerial_Knight bragged he has a studio in London and San Francisco…and Detroit? Where is all of this money coming from? On the Ferdi Rodriguez podcast, AK vented his frustration with nobody wanting to hire him for his…uh….”skill.” ‘Screw the game industry: I’ll just do it myself,’ he said, not mentioning the teams of 5-6 people he needed to bring his Aerial_Knight vision to life His first game was Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield, released in May 2021, funded mostly by grants ($10K made from showing a bad trailer?). Aerial_Knight would then team up with publisher Headon, who Aerial_Knight (real name Neil Jones) proceeded to bash repeatedly in the Ernestine Lyons interview. The publisher allegedly wanted 50% of games sales, and Aerial_Knight agreed to do a sequel (for probably the same cut). Future publishers: beware how Aerial_Knight will publicly disclose contractual financial details, and your company as a whole, after he decides to stop working with you. A sequel to Aerial Knight’s Never Yield, named Aerial_Knight’s We Never Yield, was released in July 2024 to (as of writing) 10 reviews and barely any sales. A peak of 5 players at peak popularity according to SteamDB. That brings us to Aerial_Knight’s Dropshot. Funded by Microsoft for the February offering on Gamepass (worth noting: this was not on the official announcement for the month: it just randomly was added with a few other titles one random day), Aerial_Knight’s Dropshot was created as a mobile game first, without things like crosshair sensitivity or the ability to invert controls (some of this was recently patched, with Aerial_Knight RAGING about the feedback on social media). On BlueSky: Aerial_Knight would get upset about reviews pointing out him missing accessibility features, deploying a patch a day after release that…fixed some bugs. But that’s how Aerial_Knight works: in an embarrassing interview with Bender Waffles on YouTube, Aerial_Knight let out a big laugh when asked for advice. “Finish your game, then you can patch it and fix things later.” My man: you didn’t even finish THIS game! You left out accessibility options that allows people to play the game: why’d you spend more time modeling a flaming cow than improving the experience? Development of Aerial_Knight’s Dropshot took less than a year but don’t worry, Aerial_Knight has confirmed he’s also releasing two other games this year (2026)…so you KNOW this was sent out as a low effort cash grab. AK you are not Strange Scaffold, you cannot do multiple prototypes, I MEAN GAMES, a year! The reason Aerial_Knight names his games Aerial_Knight is so they appear at the top of your Steam library list first…or because he’s a complete narcissist. Likely the latter: just watch a few interviews with him. Aerial_Knight has underbaked the gameplay, story and menus in this pie. Started up the game: “Press A to play” …but I’m on a keyboard? Hit the PLAY button…I try to do so, the game freezes…Have to restart. Tried left clicking on the PLAY button…nothing. Try spacebar and a few different keys…oh…you need to hit the RETURN button to begin playing…now you need to use the DIRECTIONAL BUTTONS to select a number? Are these the levels? Better start with 1…I hope this isn’t the difficulty! Aerial_Knight’s story begins with the following (yes: this is in all caps in game): “WHAT UP DOE! I’M SMOKE WALLACE! WHEN I WAS A KID, I WAS BITTEN BY A RADIOACTIVE DRAGON. IT TURNED MY SKIN PURPLE AND GAVE ME THE POWER TO SHOOT BULLETS FROM MY FINGERTIPS. THEN THE DRAGON ATE MY FAMILY (Editors note: you NEVER get to see this in the game, nor does it have any impact on future events). NOW I’M HITCHING RIDES WITH MERCENARIES WHO WOULD TAKE ME OUT THE FIRST CHANCE THEY GET, BUT WE’RE ALL HUNTING THE SAME BEASTS AND THEIR EGGS. NONE OF THEM ARE GETTING IN MY WAY. I’M HERE FOR THE DRAGONS, AND I’M NOT STOPPING UNTIL THEY’RE GONE!” It’s worth noting that Aerial_Knight has a self insert MC that looks like him in every single one of his games so far. But in Dropshot? Smoke Wallace has some facial hair and sunglasses! Also worth noting: Aerial_Knight is rich, as evident by the thousands of dollars in decorations, expensive chair and computer on the desk. How is he affording all these conventions and merch when his games barely sell? Answer: he’s another Dani Lalonders grifter (still waiting on volumes 2 and 3 from Veritable Joy Studios…it came out in 2022 and you promised that you’d finish the game every year Dani, what is taking so long? Needed to spend $10K+ of Mommy and Daddy’s money on traveling to DICE and GDC instead of working on the game you lied about and abandoned?). Probably living with his rich parents (and not getting a job) like Lalonders…but that’s speculation. Aerial_Knight? You are not a Spike Lee joint. Aerial_Knight there is not a Jerry Heller out there to steal your IP or ideas: you are not O’Shea Jackson. Nobody cares about your branding efforts, but they do care you’re pretending to be a solo developer. You need to put in effort (and marketing) to get a bigger audience, you can’t solely make games for your niece. I think Future’s “King’s Dead” song describes your game design best, Aerial_Knight: “You ain’t really wild, you a tourist (a tourist).”

Dropshot is an uber stylistic, neon, comic punk, FPS shooter that offers some fresh ideas on the score attack arcade genre. The entire game just drips with STYLE. And completely nails the ps2, weird, comic book aesthetic of No More Heroes and Jet Set Radio - that it clearly draws inspiration from. Regarding gameplay, the level loops feel short and snappy. You jump in and out of levels as you fine tune your strat to improve your score. Double tapping mercenaries, memorizing balloon and bomb positions ensures that perfecting your runs takes a fair bit of skill and feels rewarding.

Alright fellas, where we dropping (and who we shooting)? Aerial_Knight's DropShot is a wild game about skydiving through the air and trying to go fast throughout your descent while avoiding floating terrain, obstacles, and even enemy skydivers! Said enemy skydivers can be taken down with fingergun shots or melee attacks, and ideally you'll be taking them [i]all[/i] out to be the last one standing as you reach the finish. Sometimes this'll mean making sure you're descending fast enough to reach some of the further ones, but luckily you can ride enemies' slipstreams that come behind them to go faster and take 'em down! Just be sure to keep your fingergun ammo intact by shooting/hitting balloons along the way, and destroy some eggs to gain access to powerups too! I like the slick nature of routing your way down descents to try and take down all the enemies! Sometimes it'll involve not shooting them immediately and instead riding their slipstream to gain more speed (to eventually reach the later enemies faster. You do have to watch out for them shooting at [i]you[/i] if you're close enough to them though, and while they don't immediately attack as soon as you're within range (and sometimes they miss anyway), you can get got quicker than you might think! Having 2 HP (albeit unrecoverable HP) means it's not the end of the world, but you'll still have to be cautious. Admittedly there are some tricky moments where some enemies start off [i]behind[/i] you at the start of a drop, which can lead to some rough early damage at the beginning of a couple levels, but you'll at least be able to get the jump on them on your next attempt (and it actually feels kinda thrilling to be able to ride their slipstreams as they pass you)! Also, I'm thankful for your shots having a bit of aim assist to 'em (in the sense that the hitboxes for enemies/objects are a bit bigger than they appear, so you don't have to be extremely precise with your crosshair (but you still need to be close enough to them, though you can get away with some pretty long-distance hits)), and shooting enemies causing a temporary slowmo effect (allowing you to chain takedowns if there's multiple peeps around)! Amidst the 50 hand-crafted levels are boss fights (land enough shots on a large enemy to take them down before you land, all while avoiding their attacks) and duels against an opponent to reach an egg first. You [i]can[/i] be really quick and unload a heckton of shots on the bosses once they get in range to take them out quicker, but you still have to manage not only ammo, but watching where you're going so you don't crash into something! The duels were admittedly kinda trivial and I wonder if they could've been more interactive by being able to ride your rival's slipstream (and have them be more aggressive with following yours), but I guess you could spice things up by prioritizing flying through more score multiplier rings while still reaching the egg before your opponent! You also unlock an Endless mode by completing the game, which has you flying through space nonstop while avoiding lasers, taking peeps down, and flying through score rings. You also have a timer that will end your run if it hits 0, but it refills upon getting takedowns, flying through score rings, or getting ammo reloads/powerups. DropShot is a pretty cool experience! Despite its trickiness at times, I enjoy the "one more go" vibes I get from trying to obtain higher ranks (which I believe is based on how many enemies you take down) and going as fast as possible. The game's visual style is pretty dope as well, from the character designs to the environments you're dropping through! Even the UI is nice with its graffiti-esque blocky font and visuals! I enjoyed the music too, from sick rock tunes to EDM bangers (and the last area's music made reaching it feel rewarding)~ I will mention that I wonder if a progress minimap (a line with your player dot, the finish line, and other dots representing enemies and how far forward/backward they are from you) would be nice to have to better gauge how far away some enemies are since I found myself wondering if I passed or didn't catch up to some when I was missing some takedowns, the start of some levels had me dying unexpectedly due to nearby islands/obstacles that were slightly behind me that I collided with if I moved to the side, and it'd be neat to have a built-in windowed mode (not [i]too[/i] huge of an issue as I pressed Alt + Enter to force windowed mode and used a program called Sizer to change the window size)... As of the time of me writing this review (02/19/2026) The dev has been tweaking and polishing stuff since release (02/17/2026) though, which is nice, so some of these things might be addressed in the near future. If you're familiar with AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity (yes, that's its unshortened title) or its sequel AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - For the Awesome (again, real unshortened title) and are looking for a bit of a point and click adventure to go along with your skydiving, or you're just intrigued by any of the actiony stuff I've described, [b]drop[/b] a purchase on Aerial_Knight's DropShot and give it a [b]shot[/b]! (Sorry, I couldn't help it... ;u;)

If you like fast-paced arcade shooters then I think you'll find a lot to enjoy in this game. I've played up to level 35 and they are fairly short which I feel encourages replaying them and high-score chasing. I think there is fun to be had experimenting with different paths through the level because it doesn't feel like it's possible to hit *every* speed boost, coin, power-ups etc whilst also shooting all the baddies so you need to experiment and find out what works best. The story is completely absurd and silly (complimentary) and it's visually stylish with a banging (imho) soundtrack. It's made by a small dev team so they have focused on what they want to do without adding excess stuff around it. It is an arcade shooter and nothing more and I personally love a very focused game that I can dip in and out of that doesn't demand all my time forever.

Wicked arcade action with a ton of style, especially the vibrant colors and killer OST. Really fun and simple mechanics that work in 60s bursts for each of the replayable missions. If you love chasing high scores, this is a great one.

A fun, fast-paced arcade shooter! I love the aesthetic and the unique take on this genre. Its more challenging than it looks! I keep hitting "Play again" to try for S+++ rank :D

This game kicks ass! Sick music, awesome art and a short snappy gameplay loop that had me coming back again and again for "just one more run"

Very fun. Kinda like if AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity was a FPS

Fun, unique, arcade style game.

This is SUCH an engaging game. I love that it's a single person shooter game so it makes it easy to compete against yourself to be the best. Some of the levels are incredibly challenging and it really makes you want to try again and again. The art style and music blend together to make a great gaming experience. While some players may be able to get through the story of the game fairly quickly, the need for perfection allows for a lot of replays. I'm looking forward to continuing to play.