How to play Gyruss online
- Circle around the screen: arrow keys; press them in a rolling circular motion, as you would move the joystick
- Fire: Space bar (tap quickly for rapid fire); it also starts the game
- Choose difficulty and number of ships: F11 (Select) cycles through levels 1ā4, each with 3 or 5 ships
- Restart at the same level: F12 (Reset)
Gameplay
You travel through the solar system in āwarpsā. Each warp is four formations of enemy planes, each a different colour with its own flight pattern. Planes appear from the centre of the screen or sweep in from the edges, and they fire square missiles that you can only dodge. When the last formation has flown in, the survivors regroup in the middle and keep attacking until you shoot the last one. It takes two warps to reach Neptune and three to reach each planet after that: Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and finally Earth. Reach Earth with a ship left and the journey starts again from Neptune.
Two other hazards appear. Satellites come in groups of three; shoot the middle one and your ship fires double shots until you lose it. Meteors canāt be destroyed, so keep out of their way. Each time you reach a planet you get a Chance Round: four formations fly past that cannot hurt you, and wiping them out earns big bonuses.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Enemy plane | 100 |
| Whole formation | 1,000 / 1,500 / 2,000 / 2,500 (1st to 4th) |
| Satellites | 500 / 1,000 / 1,500 (more with double shots) |
| All four Chance Round formations | 10,000 bonus |
The game ends when your last ship is destroyed. Oddly, your final score carries over to the start of the next game, so the challenge is to keep beating it.
Tips
- Get the double shot early. It lasts until you lose a ship and makes later formations much easier. Aim for the middle satellite of each group.
- Donāt always clear every formation. Satellites only seem to show up when several planes are gathered in the centre, so letting a few through can bring them out.
- Stay away from meteors. Shots do nothing to them. Move around the ring instead.
- Relax in the Chance Round. Nothing can hit you, so park where the formation passes and keep firing.
- Pick 5 ships while learning. Each difficulty level offers a 3-ship and a 5-ship option.
From the arcade to the 2600
The arcade Gyruss was designed by Yoshiki Okamoto, his second and last game for Konami after Time Pilot. He later joined Capcom, where he designed 1942. The arcade machine used five sound chips to play its stereo version of the Bach piece. Parker Brothers brought Gyruss to the 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, ColecoVision and Commodore 64 in June 1984.
The 2600 version keeps the circular movement, the warps, the satellites, the meteors and the Chance Rounds, but it leaves out the arcadeās force-field generators, pairs of enemies with a deadly beam between them. To fit the music in, the game also drops the sound effects, so the tune plays without interruption.
