xWUNG

Described by the author as a shmup without the shooting, xWUNG presents a
retro playfield straight from the days of early arcades with vector graphics
and chippy tweets and bleeps. The easiest comparison is to Asteroids , since
they are both primarily concerned with dismantling large targets and avoiding
being caught in the debris. Here, however, once the target has been struck and
the pieces fly, you have no need to further diminish them.

A profounder difference lies in the tools in your toolbox; rather than a gun,
your weapon is a weighted wire, swung and twirled around your vessel at
varying lengths, depending on the vigorousness of the swirl. If either the
weight or the wire touches an enemy, they discombobulate in a shower of
rectangular parts, deadly to the touch. (A power-up, a yellow counter-weight
with its own wire opposite your red weapon’s, is ineffective against enemies
but dissolves debris on contact.) Your ship also has no acceleration or
deceleration — both the movement of the ship and the trajectory of the weapon
are directed by precise mouse movements.

Further simple game dynamics include combo tracking (of multiple enemy death
through a single swing of your astro-bolo) and sporadic boss battles.

(To finally distance ourselves from the mechanics of Asteroids , it’s
important to note that the single-screen playfield does not wrap around at the
edges.)