Aerobat is an absurdly high speed arcade shmup-like. The core experience is about building and expending speed. Your ship can power its engines or its weapons, but not both at once; to destroy enemies you must boost to build as much speed as possible, then launch upwards and cut the engines to begin firing from free-fall. The longer you boost without firing, the bigger the payoff when you finally release and start shooting.

The game's art, design, and code have been created solely by Matthew Yeager, known ordinarily as Thew.

Aerobat was initially developed in April 2013 as a 48-hour prototype for Ludum Dare 26. The prototype was fun enough to be worth expanding into a proper game, and so work has continued on the project since then.