Death of Kairos is a bullet hell side-scroller action game by voidgazerBon, released in October, 2026.
Typically this combination of genres makes you expect a cosmic theme. Here though the cosmos we’re dealing with is a metaphysical concept of time itself.
You play as a young prince on a mission to defeat the undead master of time. The old master may resemble a rotting corpse, yet his army of minions and a book of bullet-like spells are as deadly as ever. Crush them, and you’ll get to challenge one of his 4 boss forms.
Even before you start the cart you see an amazing piece of art right there on its cover. This is a voidgazerBon guarantee.
There’s no title screen, and a short startup animation throws you right into a tutorial where you can get familiar with controls. Then, a minute later, you are thrown into a side scrolling world of deadly red spots coming at you in varied patterns across all 3 stages of the game.
They vary in size and speed, and, when you add numerous minions of the undead time master, the game becomes quite hectic, requiring maximum focus on both enemies and spotty magic.
Unlike their foes, a player has to make every shot, swing and blow count. Each weapon — a bow, a sword or a bomb — has only 3 charges and that pushes us towards building a more tactical approach instead of being completely consumed by the moment.
Every life is a clock that rewinds time. If three prove insufficient, checkpoints can be enabled in the Pico-8 Enter key menu after completing the tutorial.
Boss battles turn the game around. Suddenly, treacherous red spots are coming from all possible directions, no longer limited by one axis. Now you are not only trying to avoid them, but also dance around the time master’s giant heart you have to tear apart.
All these graphics are masterfully done, showing a clever use of the tricky Pico-8 palette. Sprites of all sizes are nicely animated. The music is very atmospheric and the sound effects provide nice feedback along with a screen shake effect.
I’ve had a great time playing this game and I bet you will too.
Death of Kairos gets an Avarian thumbs up.
Play the game on Lexaloffle Pico-8 BBS.
Developer’s Pico-8 BBS profile | Itch.io page | BlueSky | Mastodon.