Portugues
Super Square
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About the game
Super Square is a test of reflexes with almost nothing on screen. In the middle sits a small square, and you are a single dot running along its outline. From the four edges of the playfield, walls slide inward toward the centre, and every wave leaves an opening somewhere. Get your dot to the open side before the walls arrive.
The waves come in sixteen patterns, with names in the source like blocks, cages, boxes, swirls, slow spirals and traps, some of them running in both directions. The counter in the top left corner goes up with each wave you survive, and for the first dozen waves the game keeps getting faster. One touch and it is over.
Playing it here
Super Square is a CHIP-8 program. CHIP-8 is a simple virtual machine from 1977, created for hobby computers like the COSMAC VIP, and people still write new games for it. This one targets SUPER-CHIP, the later extension with a sharper 128 by 64 screen, and was made for Octojam 1, the first edition of a yearly CHIP-8 game jam. It runs here in the Octo emulator, with the speed and colours chosen for it in the archive.
Click Play, then press W or the up arrow to start. F2 saves the state of the emulator at any moment and F4 brings it back. A gamepad works too: up on the D-pad starts, left and right steer.
Controls
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| W or up arrow | start; start again after a crash |
| A or left arrow | move around the square counterclockwise |
| D or right arrow | move around the square clockwise |
| F2 / F4 | save / load the state |
A few things worth knowing
Pick the short way round. The dot can circle in either direction. When a gap opens, go the way that reaches it soonest instead of always turning the same way.
Corners take time. Your dot follows the outline of the square, so getting to the opposite side means passing two corners. Start moving as soon as you see where the opening is.
The first dozen waves are the warm-up. The speed steps up every four waves until it reaches its fastest at around 12. Past that point the challenge is staying focused.
Credits and licence
Super Square was created by Tann. It runs here in Octo, the CHIP-8 development tool and emulator by John Earnest (MIT licence). The game is kept in the Chip8 Community Archive, which places everything in it in the public domain under CC0 1.0. The licence text is linked from this page.