Space Shooter

About Space Shooter

Space Shooter is a small arcade game in the style of the classic fixed-screen shooters. A formation of alien ships sways from side to side and creeps down towards you, and you fly along the bottom of the screen and shoot them one by one. Clear a wave and the next one arrives, with more rows, faster movement and more fire coming back at you. Everything in it, the ships, the stars and the sound effects, was drawn and written by us for Kaamko.

The sound is off when the page opens. Press the Sound button to turn it on. The game pauses by itself when you switch tabs, and your best score stays in this browser.

How to play Space Shooter

1. Press Start. On a computer, move with the arrow keys or A and D, and hold Space to fire. W and S move a little up and down.
2. On a phone, put your finger anywhere on the field and drag. The ship follows just above your finger, and it fires by itself.
3. Green saucers are worth 10 points, orange darts 20, and the red armoured ships in the top row from wave 3 take two hits and are worth 30.
4. From wave 2 the enemies drop bombs. You have three lives, and after a hit you blink for two seconds and cannot be hit again.
5. Every cleared wave adds a bonus of 50 points times the wave number. Press P or Esc to pause.

Tips for higher waves

Clear one column at a time from the edge. The formation sways, so a thin formation spends less time over your head. Stay low on the screen: bombs fall straight down, and more distance gives you more time to slide out of the way. The armoured ships in the top row shoot as often as the rest, so it pays to take them out early. Firing has a short cooldown, so holding Space is as fast as tapping it.

How it is built

The game draws on one HTML canvas about sixty times a second, and stops drawing entirely when it is paused, so it does not drain a phone battery in a background tab. Movement is scaled by the real time between frames, so it plays at the same speed on a slow phone and a fast computer. If your device asks for reduced motion, the starfield stands still and explosions are skipped.