Astro Strike

About the game

Astro Strike is a fast arcade space-combat game with a twist: you choose how to play it. In the 2D mode you fly a small ship over a wrapping arena seen from above, turning, thrusting, reversing and firing at asteroids and enemy ships that can come from every direction, because what leaves one edge of the screen comes back on the opposite one. In the 3D mode the same idea moves into space proper, with pitch, yaw and thrust, and enemies that you have to find and chase in three dimensions.

Both modes work in waves. Each wave brings more enemies and they get faster, so a run is a climb that ends when your health runs out, and the game keeps your high score. You can pick up health items on the way. A panel called "Nerd Knobs" lets you change how the game plays: the fire rate, your health and speed, the enemy speed, the number of enemies, the wave you start on (up to 10,000), how far you can see in 3D, the volume and even the colour of the neon interface. There is a button to put everything back to normal for when you make something horrible.

The whole game works offline, with no accounts and no tracking. The licence is clear and covers everything in the game: the code, the vector art and the synthesized sound effects are in the public domain, and the four music tracks are CC0 too.

Playing it here

Click Play and wait for the game to load (about 32 MB, downloaded only when you press the button, mostly the engine and the music). Choose 2D or 3D at the top, then press "Launch Mission" or any key. The game is made for a tall screen, so you will see black bars at the sides of a wide window. It works with the keyboard and the mouse; the on-screen touch controls are for phones.

Controls

Tips

Learn the wrap. The arena has no walls: enemies and asteroids that leave one side come back on the other, so watch the whole screen and the radar in the corner.

Start easy. The Nerd Knobs panel lets you lower the enemy speed or raise your health while you learn the controls.

Keep thrust and aim apart. In 2D you turn with A and D and push with W and S, so you can keep moving in one direction while pointing at another.

Pick up health. The health items are how you recover health during a run.

FAQ

Does it save my score? Your settings are saved in your browser on this device, and the start menu shows your high score.

Is it free to share? Yes. The author released the code and art into the public domain under CC0 1.0; the background image is under CC BY 4.0, as credited below.

Credits and licence

Astro Strike was made by DerpBiscuit. The code, the vector graphics, the icons and the synthesized sound effects are dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. The music is from OpenGameArt.org, also CC0: "The Cogs" by turtletooth, "Out in Space" and "Out in Space Menu" by Agecaf, and "Pondering the Cosmos" by Ruskerdax. The background image is "Transients in JADES field" (JADES7) by NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI, from ESA/Webb, under CC BY 4.0, resized for the game; its use does not imply endorsement by NASA, ESA, CSA or STScI. The game runs on Godot Engine 4.5.1, under the MIT licence.

Changes made for this site: the Quit button of the start menu is hidden (quitting only freezes a browser page) and the links in the credits screen do not open other pages. Nothing else in the game was changed. The licence texts and the source of this build are linked from this page.