Galactic Wars - Frenetic, pretty SHMUP on the Pico-8

We love the Pico-8 here at IRN. For a virtual platform with such limited capabilities, the community is producing some outstanding games and demos, even ones made in a month... Today we have Galactic Wars, an entry in the 2017 1GAM (One Game A month)  for January - With its title screen we see a blatant homage to Galaga before we even start. Self proclaimed as inspired by classics like Gradius, Galaga or R-Type, It's humble origin doesn't mean it's short on class.

A whole fleet of alien's ships are arriving all over from Multiverse to destroy the human race. You are the chosen pilot to face them, aboard the last ship, a little hope for the human kind!
Your mission is to destroy all alien waves before they reach Earth.
You will enter enemy territory piloting your ship, avoiding to be destroyed by the ships and enemy arms, trying to save the humanity in the definitive battle

Galactic Wars is a side-scrolling SHMUP and it's influences are clear. Nemesis/Gradius provides the scroll direction and weapons upgrade path, Galaga provides groups of enemies appearing on screen in groups/waves and R-Type with just about everything else. But Pico-8 user Bigchanguito AKA Volcano Bytes doesn't stop there. He's included what are rapidly becoming P8 hallmark items of flair - smoke and particle effects, shaky cam on explosions and its only missing glitching form its repertoire to complete the trifecta!

 

Overall this is a very polished #1GAM submission and feels complete enough to not just be a one month Jam entry - it's fast, it's furious and well drawn, as well as being rock hard!

Galactic wars can be found in Pico-8 Splore mode by searching for it, or download the cartridge from the P8 BBS or play in your browser on the Volcano Bytes itch.io page where you can also donate and get a PDF manual and poster to support the developer
Follow @VolcanoBytes on twitter

-Alistair
@ABrugsch