How to play Spacemaster X-7 online
- Fly your ship: arrow keys
- Fire missiles: Space bar (your ship stops moving while you hold it)
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Pause: F2 (colour/black-and-white switch); press it again or Space to resume
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
There is only one game: destroy as many bases of the Hyperion Empire as you can. Each base sits behind a force field with gaps in it. Fly through a gap, or shoot through one, and your missiles drain the base’s energy. An energy meter at the bottom of the screen shows the balance. While it is on the “+” side, the base keeps growing new shields. Once you push it to the “−” side, the base starts pulling its shields back in, and if you keep hitting it, it explodes.
A missile that hits the force field gives the base energy instead of taking it away, and flying into the force field costs you the ship. Meanwhile the base sends out defenders: fireballs, drifting bouncers and wanderers, heat seekers that try to ram you, and homers that chase you again and again.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Fireball | 25 |
| Bouncer | 50 |
| Heat Seeker | 100 |
| Wanderer | 200 |
| Homer | 400 |
| Each hit on the base | 25 |
| Base destroyed | 1,000 for each of the first four, 2,000 for the next four, and so on |
You start with five ships. You earn an extra one for every second base you destroy and after every 10,000 points. Each new base is harder, with faster defenders and quicker-growing shields, and the game ends when your last ship is gone.
Tips
- Get inside the force field. Shooting through a gap from outside is risky, because a missile that clips the field feeds the base.
- Fire in short bursts. Holding fire freezes your ship, which helps you aim but makes you a sitting target.
- Deal with homers first. They keep coming back, and they are worth the most.
The story behind Spacemaster X-7
The title comes from Space Master X-7, a 1958 science fiction horror film. The game has nothing to do with it. David Lubar had written an original game and had never heard of the movie; Fox decided to attach the film’s title to it. The Atari 8-bit computer version, published by Sirius Software the same year, dropped the film connection and was called Alpha Shield. Today Lubar is best known as an author of books for teenagers.
Decades later, the homebrew programmer Omegamatrix made versions played with a mouse or the Atari Trak-Ball; this page runs the original joystick cartridge.
