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This is available on archive.org to play in the browser. It's the most like riding a bike of any video game I've ever played. One hand chooses shooting directi

This is available on archive.org to play in the browser. It's the most like riding a bike of any video game I've ever played. One hand chooses shooting direction, other hand independently moves the character in a direction. Even by the 4th level there are too many enemies to track. I basically got crushed until my independent hand coordination "clicked in," then started progressing to much further levels without any clear strategy. Maybe that's how most people play video games, but I usually have some mental model of the game, techniques to try to improve, etc. Here it's just getting creamed for awhile, then a sudden change to "aaaaaaaaaaah," for longer and longer periods of time. :) Edit: clarification

tenebrisalietum 6y ago
> Even by the 4th level there are too many enemies to track. I love this game. The flashing colors are very stimulating, but the beauty of this game is that it's about judging tradeoffs in a constantly changing environment. Yes, starting at the 4th wave there are too many enemies to track. The zen of the game is this: you will lose some lives every wave after a certain point. But the game is generous and you will earn bonus lives every X points. The wandering humans in the game give you 5000 points each, but only after you save 5 in a row. You can rack up extra lives pretty quickly if you can waver through the robots and obstacles and hit 5+ in a row. So you have always think - will this path through the changing morass enable me to save a large enough chain of wandering humans to gain more lives than I'll lose? You have to constantly make "business decisions" to keep your profits (total lives) ahead of a fatal loss (your last life). Not that I can get past wave 14 or 15 though.
- jancsika 6y ago
  > but the beauty of this game is that it's about judging tradeoffs in a constantly changing environment. Exactly! It's even dynamic by the standards of early Williams games which typically had a surprising amount happening at once.
- titzer 6y ago
  Have you seen some master-level playthroughs on YouTube? They do sometimes die, but not every wave. It's still an insanely hard game. The crazy thing about the lives is that they wrap around modulo 128 (maybe it's 256), (and you can't see the count beyond 3 or 4!) which means that if you are unlucky when it wraps around and you die, then it's game over, even if you have been absolutely killing it wave after wave. Haha. Exciting!
flobosg 6y ago
> One hand chooses shooting direction, other hand independently moves the character in a direction. This style of game is called twin-stick shooter.

tenebrisalietum 6y ago

> Even by the 4th level there are too many enemies to track. I love this game. The flashing colors are very stimulating, but the beauty of this game is that it's about judging tradeoffs in a constantly changing environment. Yes, starting at the 4th wave there are too many enemies to track. The zen of the game is this: you will lose some lives every wave after a certain point. But the game is generous and you will earn bonus lives every X points. The wandering humans in the game give you 5000 points each, but only after you save 5 in a row. You can rack up extra lives pretty quickly if you can waver through the robots and obstacles and hit 5+ in a row. So you have always think - will this path through the changing morass enable me to save a large enough chain of wandering humans to gain more lives than I'll lose? You have to constantly make "business decisions" to keep your profits (total lives) ahead of a fatal loss (your last life). Not that I can get past wave 14 or 15 though.

jancsika 6y ago
> but the beauty of this game is that it's about judging tradeoffs in a constantly changing environment. Exactly! It's even dynamic by the standards of early Williams games which typically had a surprising amount happening at once.
titzer 6y ago
Have you seen some master-level playthroughs on YouTube? They do sometimes die, but not every wave. It's still an insanely hard game. The crazy thing about the lives is that they wrap around modulo 128 (maybe it's 256), (and you can't see the count beyond 3 or 4!) which means that if you are unlucky when it wraps around and you die, then it's game over, even if you have been absolutely killing it wave after wave. Haha. Exciting!

flobosg 6y ago

> One hand chooses shooting direction, other hand independently moves the character in a direction. This style of game is called twin-stick shooter.