License type: Shareware
Platform: Windows 98, I think
I remember it being a fixed screen, wave-based space shooter that I found on either one of those massive packs of shareware demos, or downloaded from tucows sometime in the late 90s? I'll try to list all the weirdly specific things I remember about it, or at least think I remember after like 20 years
- Yellow player ship, which gradually became orange-ish and underwent small visual changes (usually around its guns) as you gained upgrade levels. Mouse controls.
- Rudimentary RPG-esque upgrade system, where killing enemies gave you progress towards your weapons getting stronger. Little fuzzy on this detail, but I don't remember enemies dropping any kind of bonuses or stuff, or being in any kind of rush to collect anything in particular while playing.
- The upgrades went something like from yellow single fire, to yellow double fire using both of the side guns on the ship, to that + firing blue orbs out of the 'hood' of the ship (it looks a bit like a little yellow car in my memories, but with guns where the headlights would be), to red orbs, and so forth.
- There was a little screen that showed the last enemy you'd hit, its name, and how many HP it had left.
- Taking hits dealt damage to your upgrade level/ 'experience', with repeated hits potentially knocking you down several upgrade levels. I remember this being frustrating, but probably fairer than just dying and starting over.
- Themed sectors with a boss at the end of each sector. I think there were four, but I only had the shareware version so it ended a couple of waves into the second area. The first area had traditionally mechanical ships, while the second was some kind of biological ships that produced acid and used melee.
- Art style was fairly muted. Detailed but not very colorful apart from the projectiles. Looking at screenshots makes me think it might be some kind of obscure mid-90s Galactix clone/remake from the way the interface gives me vague nostalgia, despite never having played Galactix in my life.
- There was an enemy ship type from the first sector/area called 'Gigantus' that fired a triple shot of large, blue bubble-like projectiles.
- There was an enemy in the second area that looked like a weird fleshy beige parrot's beak/crab claw that would do lunging melee attacks, which was a rare thing because most of the enemies just shot things at you up to that point.
I'd know this game on sight, but despite combing over Windows 3.x and DOS game archives for hours, I feel no closer to finding it. I know it's not in the Mobygames fixed screen shooters section for the time period it looked like it came from, or the Dosgames Space Shooter sections for certain. If it helps, I remember playing it at around the same time as discovering DX-Ball 2, which would place this in the late 90s.
If anyone knows anything in this area that could help me narrow it down, that'd be great. I know there were approximately, like, a billion of these freaking shooter games because of Space Invaders, so it's probably a big ask. Thanks
I literally namedropped that specific section of Mobygames in the OP as one of the few lists I have gone over multiple times and feel confident ruling out. I'm about... 25 pages into old-games . com's 100+ page 'arcade-action' section today, and at least now I know it's not in the Star Defender series either, but they do look like they play similarly to the game I'm remembering, if that helps narrow it down at all.