Kero Blaster

A short, free companion game and sequel to Pink Hour titled Pink Heaven was released in November 2015, coinciding with the new Kero Blaster update.

• Title — Kero Blaster • Developer — Studio Pixel • Publisher — Playism • Designer — Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya • Released — * Windows, iOS • May 11, 2014 • PS4 • April 11, 2017 • Switch • August 23, 2018 • Android • December 24, 2021 • Mac • June 29, 2023 • Genre — Platform • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — Windows, iOS, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Android, macOS

In Kero Blaster, the player controls a frog working for Cat & Frog, a teleporter company. Armed with a peashooter, he has to clean all the teleporters of strange black monsters. The player has to work their way through a series of linear stages, by means of running, gunning and jumping. USGamer described the gameplay as "akin to... Contra or old-school, pre-Symphony of the Night Castlevanias." Kero Blaster is controlled by changing direction, jumping, and charging and firing the player character's weapon. Holding down the fire button continues to fire in the direction the character was facing when he started shooting, allowing players to move the character and change the firing direction independently.

Kero Blaster was originally supposed to be released in 2013, but Pixel delayed its release just before it was to come out. The game was rebuilt from Gero Blaster, which Pixel announced on in Japan, early 2013, but never released. Gero Blaster was a game based on comics that Pixel drew in college, starring himself as a frog and his girlfriend as a cat. While Pixel developed Cave Story entirely on his own, he worked together with Kiyoko Kawanaka for Kero Blaster so that he could stay motivated. When Pixel left the level design and production up to her, Pixel "was able to focus on smaller parts while the stages in the game were steadily being created." A month before the full release, Pixel released a demo and prologue to Kero Blaster, titled Pink Hour. In this demo, the player is an unnamed pink office worker who must find a missing document to avoid the anger of her boss. The short game is rather hard, due to the limited amount of lives the player has to beat it with. The release date of Kero Blaster, May 11, 2014, coincided with the three-year anniversary of Japanese digital distributor Playism, on which the game was released. Kero Blaster was released on Steam on 11 November 2015. In November 2015, Kero Blaster was updated as Pixel added a "Hard Mode" and "Overtime Mode" to the game. Alongside this update, Pixel released a second short, free game titled Pink Heaven, which is the sequel to Pink Hour. This companion game once again starred the pink office worker and served as a demo for Kero Blaster. A PlayStation 4 port of the game was released on April 11, 2017. A Nintendo Switch port of the game was released on August 23, 2018, via eShop, and later Singapore-based publisher 1Print Games announced a physical Nintendo Switch release for November 29, 2019. An Android port of the game was released on December 24, 2021, via Google Play.