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Comets
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About the game
Comets drops you into a starfield full of rocks. They drift in from every side, slowly tumbling, and your ship is a small triangle in the middle of the screen that turns, thrusts and shoots. A hit from a big rock splits it in two smaller ones, and the smaller ones split again, so a careless shot can leave you with more rocks than you started with. The score at the top counts what you have destroyed, and the best one is kept next to it.
The ship has no brakes. Thrust adds speed in the direction you are facing and nothing takes it away, so the way to slow down is to turn around and thrust the other way. Go too fast and the game ends with an "OVERSPEED!" warning, even if no rock touched you. Touching a rock ends the run as well, and then you start over from the title screen.
Playing it here
Comets was made for TIC-80, a fantasy console: an imaginary 1980s-style computer with a 240 by 136 screen and 16 colours, for which independent developers write new games. Nalquas made it in 2017 and it runs here in the official TIC-80 web player. Click Play, then press Z (or X, A or S) on the title screen. The highscore is saved in this browser. Esc opens the TIC-80 menu. A gamepad works directly, and on touch screens an on-screen D-pad and buttons appear.
Controls
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Left / Right | turn the ship |
| Up | thrust |
| Z, X, A or S | shoot; start the game |
| Esc | TIC-80 menu |
A few things worth knowing
Shoot big rocks from far away. A hit on a large one turns it into two smaller, faster targets, so give yourself room before you fire.
Brake early. There is no friction. If the speed warning appears, turn the ship around and thrust against your direction of travel before the next rock gets close.
Short bursts. The gun has a short pause between shots, so tapping it in a steady rhythm works better than holding the key down.
Credits and licence
Comets was made by Niklas Freund, known as Nalquas, who wrote the code and made the graphics, the music and the sound effects. It is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later. The cartridge served here is the one from the release on his GitHub, and it holds the game's complete, readable code and assets; his repository at that release is hosted alongside it. It runs here in the TIC-80 web player (MIT licence). The licence text and the source code are linked from this page.