What Space Raiders is
Space Raiders is a fixed shooter. A block of invaders advances side to side across the top of the screen and drops a row lower every time it reaches an edge. You have a single cannon that moves along the bottom, four destructible shields to hide behind, and three lives. Each wave starts at a height set by a table rather than simply descending forever: in the default mode the starting height stops falling after the eighth wave, while the harder mode cycles back through the earlier heights, so a later wave can begin higher or lower than the one before it.
Two details give it its character. The first is that only one of your shots can be in the air at a time, so every trigger pull is a commitment you have to wait out. The second is that the rack accelerates as you thin it: fewer invaders move faster, so the game speeds up in proportion to how much of the rack you have cleared, and the last few move considerably faster than the full formation did. A four-note pulse underneath quickens along with them.
How it plays
On a phone, hold the left and right buttons to move the cannon and tap FIRE, or tap anywhere on the playfield to shoot. You can hold a direction with one thumb and fire with the other. On a keyboard, move with the arrow keys or A and D and fire with Space; a click on the playfield also fires. The fire button does not auto-repeat — one press gives one shot.
There are two difficulty modes and they share a single leaderboard. The default is the more forgiving of the two: a quicker cannon, fewer and slower bombs, an aimed bomb that only tracks a cannon standing still, and an extra cannon awarded for clearing a wave. The harder mode removes those concessions and is considerably less patient with mistakes.
Getting better at it
The rack only drops a row when an invader touches the side of the screen, so clearing the outer columns first leaves a narrower formation that travels further before each descent. That trades immediate targets for time.
Shooting a narrow slit through one of your own shields leaves a gap to fire up through while the rest of the shield still stops bombs. It spends some cover to gain a firing position, and the shields degrade as the wave goes on either way.
Count your shots. The saucer's value follows a repeating fifteen-shot cycle, so which shot you hit it on decides what it is worth, and holding fire briefly to line that up is worth real points. And when a single invader is left, it moves faster to the right than to the left, so its speed across the screen depends on which way it is currently travelling.
Who it suits
For anyone who wants the fixed-shooter format done straight, without a twin-stick reinterpretation on top of it. The shot cycle on the saucer and the acceleration of the rack are both consistent rules rather than random variation, so both can be worked out and used.
Questions
What is the difference between the two modes?
The default mode is more forgiving: a faster cannon, fewer bombs and an extra cannon for clearing a wave. The harder mode drops those concessions. Both report to the same leaderboard.
Does each wave start lower than the last?
Not indefinitely. The starting height comes from a table: the default mode stops lowering it after the eighth wave, and the harder mode cycles back through earlier heights.
How much is the saucer worth?
It varies on a repeating fifteen-shot cycle, so counting your shots and timing when you take it is worth real points.
At a glance
- Genre
- Arcade, fixed shooter
- Players
- One, with a leaderboard
- Modes
- Two difficulty modes sharing one leaderboard
- Controls
- On-screen buttons on touch; arrows or A/D and Space on a keyboard
- Cost
- Free, no account, nothing to install