Eightbitoids

Experience an early 80s home console sensation with Eightbitoids! This homage to the classic space shooter Asteroids from the Atari 2600 will be sure to make you nostalgic if you were a child of the 80s. Simple controls and a simple goal: stay alive against an endless onslaught of asteroids, satellites, and UFOs! Can you roll the score over?

Controls:

Up arrow	Thrust
Left and Right arrows	Rotate
Space	Fire
Down arrow	Ship Feature (Hyperspace/Flip)
R	Restart run
Q	Quit run
M	Menu (when on Game Over screen)
P	Play (when on Game Over screen)
Esc	Leave Menu (when on Menu screen)

About

The default options are basically what was present on the Atari 2600. You earn a new ship every 5000 points. Your ship feature is hyperspace - jumping you to anywhere else on the screen. The enemy speed is the slower of the two available speeds. Satellites and UFOs will both appear randomly. The maximum score is 99,999 and you start with 4 ships. The maximum number of new large asteroids spawned when the field is clear is 8. Large and medium asteroids will split into 2 asteroids when shot.

If you want an increased challenge you can change the defaults. Extra ships can be earned at every 5k, 10k, 20k, or not at all. You can swap hyperspace for flip or no ship feature. The enemy speed can be increased. The maximum achievable score can be increase from 99,999 to 99,999,999. Your starting ship count can be set between 1 and 4. The maximum number of new large asteroids spawned when the field is cleared can be increased from 8 to 12 or 16. The maximum number of asteroids that large and medium asteroids split into when shot can be increased from 2 to 3 or 4. You can enable the display of your shot accuracy for the game.

I built this game in GameMaker Studio 2 as a birthday gift for my nephew who has an interest in retro gaming. I wanted to make something for him that I played as a kid in the 80s so Asteroids from the Atari 2600 was an easy choice. I've tried to be as true to the original as possible because I wanted it to feel like an old game but make it more accessible than the original.

I really hope you enjoy this game, I had a ton of fun building it!

Stephan