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Data Storm
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About the game
Data Storm is a fast, one-screen shooter. Your ship lives in a narrow alley down the middle of the screen, with lanes running off to the left and right. Alien ships rush back and forth along those lanes at their own speeds, and the job is simple: slide up and down the alley, turn to face the lane you want, and shoot whatever is passing by. The ship is always on rapid fire, so you never have to press a button to shoot. You only have to be in the right place.
Not everything on the screen reacts the same way. Arrows that make it all the way across turn into heavy tanks, and a tank can only be destroyed from behind; shooting one head-on just pushes it back. Prizes appear at the edge of a lane and give you a few seconds to race out and touch them. Miss the window and they turn into a supersonic cannonball. Grab one, and a ghost ship that cannot be destroyed starts hunting you, so you have to dive back into the central alley fast. Every alien except the prizes has to be shot while you are standing in the alley.
You start with five ships and can hold up to six. Clearing every alien from a level earns a bonus ship, and the faster an alien moves, the more points it is worth. Between levels the game gives you a short, psychedelic breather before the next wave.
The game was written by Haroldo de Oliveira Pinheiro for the SMS Power! coding competition in 2016, after an unfinished first version in 2012.
Playing it here
This is a homebrew game made for the Master System: a new game by an independent developer, not a commercial release. It runs here in Gearsystem, a Master System emulator compiled to WebAssembly. Click Play now and press Z or X to leave the title screen. You then have about five seconds to get ready.
F2 saves the full state of the emulator in this browser and F4 brings it back. A gamepad works too.
Controls
| Key | Master System button | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Up / Down | D-pad | move along the middle alley |
| Left / Right | D-pad | turn left or right and travel down a lane |
| Z or X | Button 1 or 2 | leave the title screen (the ship fires on its own) |
| F2 / F4 | — | save / load the emulator state |
A few things worth knowing
Shoot from the alley. All aliens except the prizes can only be hit while your ship is in the central alley, so don't wander out into a lane without a reason.
Tanks have a weak side. Shots from the front only shove a tank back. Get behind it and the same bullets destroy it.
Race the prize, then run back. A prize is worth the trip, but the ghost ship that follows is deadly. Plan the way home before you leave the alley.
Clear the screen for a bonus. Finishing a level with no aliens left gives you an extra ship, up to six.
Credits and licence
Data Storm was made by Haroldo de Oliveira Pinheiro: code, graphics and sound. The game uses SMSlib and PSGlib by sverx, both released into the public domain. The SMS Power page states the Unlicense for the game and the project repository carries the Apache License 2.0; both texts are linked from this page.