Seizure Warning
This game may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.
Controls
- Move: Arrow Keys
- Shoot: X
- Bomb: Z
- Pause: Enter
NOTE: Shoot / Bomb buttons can be swapped in the Pause menu
Instructions
- Destroy 30 waves of space pirates and recover the space doubloons they leave behind.
The more doubloons you collect, the higher your score. The ring around your ship indicates the range of your tractor beam which attracts doubloons. - Destroying space pirates will increase your score multiplier. Letting a space pirate escape the area or taking damage will reset this multiplier to zero.
- Defeating an entire wave of space pirates will increase your level multiplier which will also increase your score.
- Once you take 3 hits your ship will be destroyed.
Powerups
Every 5th wave, a random powerup will appear. Collecting powerups will upgrade your ship. Powerups can only be upgraded 3 times. The type of powerup will be indicated by the letter displayed:
- Power (P): Increases the damage of your ship's weapons. Ideal for taking down enemies quickly.
- Option (O): Options will orbit around your ship, firing additional shots, increasing your shot width. They will also damage enemies on impact allowing for both offensive and defensive play.
- Magnet (M): Increases your pickup range, allowing you to collect doubloons easier. It will also increase the range of any Options that orbit your ship.
- Bomb (B): Bombs will clear all enemies and their projectiles on the screen. You start with 3 bombs, though additional bombs can be picked up after fully upgrading the Power, Option, or Magnet powerups.
Tips
- The closer you are to the top of the screen, the faster you shoot. Use this to your advantage to defeat enemies quickly.
- Bombs can be particularly useful during the final level of the game when things are most intense.
- Defeating enemies quickly will shorten the total play time. See how fast you can beat the game and post your fastest play time in the comments!
Alternate Color Palettes
Choose from 10 different color palettes in the Pause menu, including palettes submitted by content creators who have supported the game during its development. Check them out!
Credits
Design, programming, art, sfx, and music done by me (Dumenglume).
Changelog
Thanks to everyone who checked out the game! Let me know your thoughts on the latest update, or what you'd like to see in the future for Space Ranger!
Gold star for a very smooth game.
My first few runs I didn't last long because I was trying to get all the doubloons. Then I read just how the combo system worked and concentrated on keeping that high.
Here's my score from getting the upgrade sequence S, S, W, T, T, W. No enemies got past and I lost no lives, so my combo reached 99 and stayed there.
I like the bold 4-color palette, but I think there might be too much use of all colors on every object. Could you try making all the player shots and coins blue/white and all the enemy shots orange/white and see if it makes the game easier to "read"?
Thanks for the feedback Cowirrie! Readability has been tricky with the limited palette. I'll try out your suggestion though to see if it improves readability!
I didn't have room to include an instructions screen but am glad the written instructions helped out!
Based on your score / upgrade sequence, did you feel like the game was too easy at that point? Or was it still fun?
Thanks again for playing!
@SVEDEN11:
"Based on your score / upgrade sequence, did you feel like the game was too easy at that point? Or was it still fun?"
It was fun, and having reached 99 combo I was really worried about taking even one hit.
I do feel like picking up at least two "S" upgrades achieves a lot more than any "W" upgrades, but that may just be because my aim is terrible, so I need a wider spread of shots more than I need narrow damaging shots.
Really dig the presentation! I think a sequel is totally worth it with more variance in baddies. I got to the sphere and died and haven’t played again yet. Dunno if that guy is mid-boss or final…thinking some bigger baddies thrown in after a while would help change up the pace.
@Cowirrie Thank you for the additional feedback on this. You're correct that collecting S upgrades is easier than W upgrades in some ways.
I was trying to design them in a way to let the player adjust their own difficulty depending on the upgrades they focus on, but still having all three be useful and benefit each other.
'S' upgrades make it easier to hit more enemies, but won't destroy them as quickly, and spread is dependent on how much you've upgraded your pickup range.
'W' upgrades increase damage and destroy enemies more quickly, but requires more accuracy, as well as more movement to collect doubloons.
'T' upgrades make collecting doubloons much easier, but limits your overall damage which means destroying enemies is more difficult.
If I had to assign a difficulty to each upgrade, I'd say an 'S' focused build is best for beginners / casual play, 'W' focus is a bit more challenging, and 'T' is the most difficult since you are limited on both damage and range (but can increase your score the easiest).
I'd love to hear people's thoughts on how this can be conveyed better in the game or in future titles, as it's not something I explicitly mention in the instructions.
@morningtoast Thank you for playing! The sphere you saw was the "oh crap I'm out of tokens, guess I need to wrap this up" final boss lol.
Originally the game was meant to have around 100 levels and 10 types of enemies, but I'm not a skilled enough token cruncher to fit all that in there.
I would like to make a follow up game to this either as a direct sequel or spiritual successor though!
I made this while waiting for Krystman's Advanced Shmup Tutorial to be completed and for Picotron to release. Now that Picotron is out and there's no token limit restrictions, I'd like to try making another shmup with a bit more experience now.
If you have any suggestions on what kind of variety you'd like to see with the enemies, let me know! Right now they're all pretty samey but there may be some opportunity to tweak things in a future update.
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