How to play
Your ship sits at the bottom of the playfield. Enemies arrive in groups, fly in along curved paths, take their places in a swaying formation and then peel off to dive at you. Destroy every enemy to clear the wave. Most of them drop credits: gold diamonds that fall towards the bottom, so fly over them before they're gone. Between waves you land in the hangar and spend them on upgrades. Every fifth wave is a boss, and the fifth boss, on wave 25, ends the campaign. After that you can keep going in endless mode, where the waves and bosses return tougher and faster.
- Keyboard: arrow keys or W, A, S, D to move, Shift for fine moves, B for a bomb, P or Esc to pause. Auto-fire is on; switch it off with F and hold Space to shoot.
- Mouse: the ship follows the cursor over the playfield.
- Phone or tablet: drag anywhere on the playfield. The ship moves with your finger and keeps its distance from it, so drag below the ship and your finger never hides it. It fires by itself. The red B button drops a bomb.
- Controller: stick or d-pad to move, A to fire, B or X for a bomb, Start to pause. If a pad doesn't respond, check it with the controller tester.
Only the bright dot in the middle of your ship can be hit, not the wings, so you can slip through gaps that look too narrow. When you're hit you lose a life, your weapon drops a level and your ship blinks for about two seconds, during which nothing can hurt it.
Enemies
- Gnats (green) fly in formation and dive now and then. From wave 3 they fire as they dive.
- Hornets (yellow) dive often, weave as they fall and sometimes bring a wingman.
- Wardens (magenta) stay in formation and fire aimed shots; their eye glows just before they shoot.
- Bulwarks (blue) carry an energy shield that soaks up shots and recharges if you leave them alone.
- Mitosis cells (violet) split into two fast mites when destroyed.
- Comets (orange) are marked at the top edge, then launch straight at where you are.
- Lancers (red) draw a dashed aim line, then fire a very fast lance along it: move off the line.
- Weavers (teal) cross the screen dropping mines that burst into a ring of bullets.
- Rocks drift down and break into smaller rocks.
- Carriers are armoured gunships with two turrets. They always drop a power-up.
Power-ups and the hangar
Destroyed enemies sometimes drop a hexagon badge: S spread shot, L laser (a beam that burns the first thing it touches), M homing missiles, D two drones that fire with you and block bullets, O a shield that absorbs one hit, and B an extra bomb. Picking up the weapon you already have raises it a level, up to 3. Missiles and drones last 20 seconds.
In the hangar you choose between Rapid fire, Power (damage), Hull (an extra life slot), Magnet (collect credits from further away), Thrusters (speed), bombs and repairs. You can't afford everything, so pick a plan: early damage makes the first bosses short, extra hull forgives mistakes, and a magnet pays for itself because you stop losing credits off the bottom of the screen.
Bosses
Each boss has three or four phases, marked on its health bar. When a phase begins, every bullet on the screen vanishes, so each new pattern starts clean. The Sentinel fires fans and rings, then a double spiral. The Hive Queen sends curtains of bullets with gaps and releases her brood. Twin Fang hides its core behind two pods until you destroy them, then sweeps bursts of needles across the field from a dashed line that marks where the sweep starts: slip through the gaps between bursts. The Leviathan fires walls with a single gap. The Overmind circles itself with orbs that block your shots. A bomb damages bosses too, but its best use is to get out of a pattern you can't read.
Score and tips
- Destroy enemies in quick succession to build the multiplier (up to ×8). Getting hit resets it.
- Clearing a wave without being hit adds a no-hit bonus on top of the wave bonus.
- Stay low and move in small steps: most bullets are aimed at where you are when they're fired.
- Your accuracy is the share of your shots that hit something; it's on the summary with the wave, score and bosses beaten.
Your best score and wave for Normal and Hard are kept in this browser. After a game, Share result makes a link with your wave, score, accuracy and bosses beaten. For something calmer in between, try 2048, or check how quick you really are with the reaction time test.