"Defender Clone" Doesn't Do it Justice
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Yes, the basics of the gameplay derive from Defender--it's a sidescrolling shmup in which you can 'flip' your ship to move and fire either right or left, and enemies approach from both sides of the screen. But Alien Abduction features trippy late-80s graphics, excellent sound and music, 30 levels, and 3 gameplay modes.

Dragons and Unicorns Meet... The Space Shooter?

Archmage is a classic vertical strolling space shooter--except that instead of controlling a spaceship, you control a dragon or unicorn, and instead of shooting at enemy ships, you're shooting at a variety of fantasy beasties--using spells instead of science fictional weapons.

Innovative? No--but the controls are smooth, the bosses are interesting, and its graphically appealing--cute, in a word.

Death and Beauty

It's a paradox that the shmup--that old-school genre of frenetic space shooting--can create visuals that come closer to the status of abstract art than any other digital form... If you could ever look up from the intensity of combat long enough to really notice them.

Bullet Candy is a case in point; frenetic space mayhem, and beautiful imagery.

Charlie Knight, its creator, is clearly a long-standing enthusiast of the genre; he's created a highly polished, well executed examplar of the form, complete with "Minter levels" as an homage to Jeff Minter's landmark games. Shmup fans will find a lot to like here; novices are advised to turn the difficulty down as low as it will go (which isn't much).

Clash'N Slash is a classic shmup with 70 levels, scads of opponents, power-ups and, well, just continuous shooting action. See aliens, shoot 'em... That, and not the hokey pokey, is what it's all about.

Loads of weapons, upgrades and enemies will hold your interest and the innovative bonus triggering system will make your game experience colorful and fun.

In Worlds Away, as in the original Clash'N Slash, you must defend your planet from pesky alien invaders that will arrive from all around the galaxy.

This time alien hordes are more diverse and clever featuring more than 70 enemy types and 12 huge bosses. But worry not as there are two brave heroes on your side! Barry Barnes (codename: Clash) and Liz Valentine (codename: Slash) are there to help you and save humanity.

A Shmup for the Rest of Us?

Crusaders of Space 2 clearly has its genesis in Space Invaders, but there's more complexity here than you'd expect from a straightforward Space Invaders clone with more modern graphics. In addition to your normal gun, you have a limited number of missiles, mainly useful in taking out fixed gun emplacements or bosses at the end of an 'episode', and upgrades, which you receive over time, can give you such things as a gun that fires both straight ahead and simultaneous shouts at angles to left and right.

As in Space Invaders, you're fixed to a line at screen bottom, and can move only left and right, which you do mainly to dodge bullets fired by your opponents, or to follow an alien ship you're trying to destroy. The aliens aren't simply unrelenting masses moving slowly down-screen, though some behave that way; some swoop about in circles or curved lines across the screen, in the fashion of opponents in more modern shmups. Some are "mines" that don't shoot back until you destroy them, at which point they release a hail of bullets that can be hard to dodge. Intermittently, destroyed opponents drop powerups of various kinds, which drift down toward you; ideally, you intercept these for their benefits, but sometimes enemy fire is too close (or you're busy elsewhere), and you have to let them go.

The Developer Says

Dark Matter is a remake of the classic arcade game Asteroids. In 1980, Asteroids was one of the most commercially successful games and helped to establish videogames as a lasting entertainment media. For a generation of video game addicts, Asteroids will always mean simple graphics, stressful and addictive gameplay, and dreams of high-scoring glory.

A Command Directive Says There's No Such Things as Flying Saucers, Soldier

Devastro is, at its core, a level-based top-down shooter in which you control a squad of soldiers destroying ETs and blowing up their UFOs. Your soldiers level-up during play (in RPG fashion, and you may find yourself replaying a level in order to avoid the death of a character you've worked to upgrade); main weapons are guns and grenades, though you get to control some cool vehicles in later levels.

The combat is rarely as intense as in frenetic overhead shooters like Crimsonland or RIP, but Devastro has something those games lack: actual humor. It seems the Army isn't too keen on acknowledging the existence of UFOs, though it understands the importance of wiping out the alien invaders. The story is carried through a series of comic-book-like cut scenes at various points in the game, and is amusing enough to keep you engaged and eager to wipe out those evil enemy saucers Sir! That don't exist. Yes Sir! Ready for deniable action Sir!

nullpointer is a digital artist who experiments with algorithmically generated digital imagery. Playing around with fractals, he decided that rather than simply exposing people to pretty pictures, he wanted them to interact with the imagery. And being a serious fan of old-school shmups, he created this game in which you interact with the images by (what would you expect?) shooting them.

2007 IGF Finalist
And It's Free (Save Your Quarters)

And quarters, rather than dollars, it would be; Gamma Bros feels very much like a game you'd encounter on an arcade machine in, say, 1985, probably one with two joysticks, like Robotron (actually, you use the arrow keys to move and WASD to shoot in the four cardinal directions). It's a space shoot-'em-up (shmup), but unlike the frenetic madness of most shmups, it has a laid-back, almost relaxing feel.

A fun little game.