How to play Fire Fly online
- Fly in any direction: arrow keys (diagonals work too)
- Fire an energy shot: Space bar. It flies the way you are facing, and you can fire again only once it has left the screen.
- Choose the level and number of players: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Start the game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch) or Space bar
- Carry on after losing a life: Space bar
- Player 2: T/F/G/H to move, A to fire (the players take turns)
Gameplay
In the manual’s story, a test pilot crashes on a planet of bugs that have turned themselves into machines. Some of them, the Bad-Bugs, have turned against the rest, and the good bugs give you their best machine-bug to fight back and to rescue the Pixie, the last living creature on the planet.
The game is a series of screens, and you can only move forward: you cannot leave a screen to the left, and every new one lies to the right. First comes the Pixie, watched over by a bee that tracks you well and kills with one sting. Then the flaming pumpkin, which is deadly to touch and fires seeds at you. After that come demons with cannons, bats, a sun that shoots fireballs and coiled serpents. Survive them all and the whole series starts again. You begin with three lives, and the remaining lives are shown at the top of the screen.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Shoot an enemy | 10 |
| Shoot the pumpkin | 20 |
| Rescue the Pixie | 30 |
| Pick up a treasure | 99 |
Game variations
- Practice: one player, no score and unlimited lives. You can still reach every screen.
- Level One: the normal game, for one or two players
- Level Two: the enemies are harder to shoot, for one or two players
The difficulty switches are not used. The manual also says the game works well with a trackball (it calls it a “ball controller”); the emulator has no trackball, but the keyboard works fine.
Tips
- Don’t waste your shot. Only one shot can be on screen at a time, so a miss leaves you defenceless until it flies off. Line up before you fire.
- Go for the treasures. At 99 points, one treasure is worth almost ten enemy hits.
- Learn the screens in Practice. Each enemy moves differently, so scout them with unlimited lives before a scored game.
About Mythicon
Mythicon released only three Atari 2600 games, all in 1983 and all by Bruce de Graaf: Sorcerer, Fire Fly and Star Fox. Fire Fly shares its Practice mode, two levels and unused difficulty switches with Sorcerer.
