Portugues
Dragon Blaster
Saved games stay in this browser only.
About the game
Dragon Blaster is a one-minute score attack. You fly a small green dragon over scrolling grassland and desert while flights of rival dragons swoop down in threes along a curved path. Each one you shoot is worth a point, and each orb you catch is worth five.
The orbs are also your weapons. They come in three elements, lightning, fire and wind, and you can hold two of them at a time. Each element on its own gives a different shot (a fast bolt, a weaving flame, a three-way gust), and the two together combine into a new one, so a well-chosen pair clears the screen much faster.
When the clock drops below thirty seconds the scrolling stops and a dracolich, a huge skeletal dragon, takes over the sky, drifting around and cycling through its own fire patterns. In this version the boss is still a prototype: it cannot be defeated yet, so the last half minute is about dodging it and picking off whatever is left.
The game was first made for SHMUP JAM 1, whose theme was dragons, and then improved for the SMS Power! coding competition in 2022. It has no music or sound effects.
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 the clock starts right away.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Arrows | D-pad | move your dragon in eight directions |
| X | Button 2 | shoot (hold for continuous fire); play again after Time Over |
| Z | Button 1 | switch between both powers, the first only and the second only; play again after Time Over |
| F2 / F4 | — | save / load the emulator state |
A few things worth knowing
Orbs are points too. At five points each, catching orbs adds up as fast as shooting, and every pickup changes your weapon.
Z needs two elements. Once you hold two, each press cycles from the combined shot to the first element alone, then the second alone. The icons in the top right corner show which ones are on.
No lives to lose. Flying into an enemy only makes your dragon blink, but that enemy is gone without giving you its point.
Credits and licence
Dragon Blaster was made by Haroldo O. Pinheiro with the devkitSMS and is released under the MIT licence. The graphics come from OpenGameArt: the player's dragon and the enemies from the "Dragon Icon Pack" by Molly "Cougarmint" Willits (CC BY 3.0); the fire, wind and background from DragonDePlatino's DawnLike tileset (CC BY 4.0, palette by DawnBringer); the lightning from Emcee Flesher's "Space War Man" set (OGA-BY 3.0 / CC0); and the dracolich from the bone dragon in "Stendhal Dragons" by Kimmo Rundelin (kiheru), under CC BY-SA 3.0. The licence texts and full credits are linked from this page.