Spheres of Chaos
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- This article is about the video game. For the band, see Spheres of Chaos (Band).
| Spheres of Chaos | |
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| Developer(s) | Iain McLeod |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Shoot 'em up |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Platform(s) | Acorn Archimedes (RISC OS), PS2 (PS2 Linux), PC (Windows) |
| Input | Mouse, Keyboard, D-pad |
Spheres of Chaos is a space shooter created by Iain McLeod, the basic gameplay being similar to the game Asteroids. The game uses very bright, psychedelic colours and patterns, with many enemies on screen at once. The audio is similar to that of Robotron: 2084 and Defender. The game was originally written for RISC OS on the Acorn Archimedes. Ports exist for Linux, Windows and PS2 Linux.
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[edit] Gameplay
The player controls a small grey spaceship and levels are completed by eradicating all enemies from the screen. The difficulty and amount of enemies increase along with the level number. Enemies will typically split up into smaller versions when hit. Black holes also appear during gameplay and either attract or repel the spaceship. Many black holes at once can mean that space becomes unnavigatable.
Some enemies will provide power-ups when defeated. The colour of the power-up when found will affect the ability of the power-up.
There are various options which can be modified to change features such as the amount of enemies and power-ups as well as in-game visuals. The game can be played in single player or in multi-player with up to 8 players.
[edit] Enemies
[edit] Common aliens
These appear when the level begins and must be destroyed to advance to the next level. Common aliens either split into several parts when hit or spawn smaller objects automatically.
[edit] Mines
Mines stay on the same spot on the screen, unless affected by the gravity. Mines are spawned by some common aliens and end of the level aliens. After some amount of time, they split into 8 mine shards.
[edit] Mine shards
Mine shards are created after various mines have exploded. Their movement is linear, unless affected by the gravity. They will disappear a second later after appearing.
[edit] Spheres
Spheres fly around the screen passively and are heavily affected by the powerups 'slowdown', 'stop' and 'reverse'.
[edit] Miners
A miner will spawn mines automatically but move slowly.
[edit] Rockets
Rockets slowly chase the player, however their turning ability is quite slow.
[edit] Fish
Fish have a much better homing ability than rockets.
[edit] Spiralers
Spiralers float around passively while making circular moves.
[edit] Pentagons
As the name says, smallest pentagons resemble very much of a pentagon shape. Smallest pentagons make short but quick random leaps.
[edit] Bugs
Bugs start to appear when the player has been playing one level for too long. Bugs will charge at the player and are one of the few aliens that have an ability to shoot you. Bugs require 2 shots to be killed.
[edit] Black holes
Black holes appear at random intervals and affect the gravity for aliens, players and bullets by either attracting or reflecting. Attract black holes require five shots to disappear and are more common than reflecting black holes.
[edit] End of the level bosses
These sometimes appear when all common aliens are destroyed. They require many shots to be killed and often spawn smaller aliens.
[edit] Other
Other things appear at random intervals, similar to black holes and include bombers, daisies and bacteria.
