is a

fixed shooter Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a Video game genre, sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certai ...

arcade video game An arcade video game takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. Most arcade video games are coin-operated, housed in an arca ...

developed by

Shin Nihon Kikaku is a Japanese video game hardware and software company. It is the successor to the company Shin Nihon Kikaku and presently owns the SNK video game brand and the Neo Geo video game platform. SNK's predecessor Shin Nihon Kikaku was founded in 1978 ...

(SNK) and released in 1979. The background gives the impression of vertical scrolling, but the player ship's movement is restricted to the bottom of the screen.

Gameplay

The player controls a spacecraft which must fend off UFOs,

meteor A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as micr ...

s, and

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

s. Instead of lives, the player is given an energy reserve that is constantly diminishing; getting hit by the enemy causes gameplay to stop momentarily and a large amount of energy is depleted. Every so often, a mothership will appear and dock with the player's spacecraft, allowing the energy to be refilled. There are 3–4 recognizable stages as the game progresses and new enemies begin to appear. After these, the mothership will appear, and the cycle starts over; this continues indefinitely until the energy reaches zero. Due to the game being monochrome and a

conversion kit Conversion kit may refer to: *Arcade conversion kit, which is used to change the game an arcade machine plays * Miniature conversion kit, equipment used to alter game pieces for miniature, tabletop games. * Pinball conversion kit, which is used to ...

for ''

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter and set ...

'', many ''Ozma Wars'' monitors used the ''Space Invaders'' color overlay.

Legacy

There are two bootleg versions of this game called ''Space Phantoms'' and ''Solar Flight''. In ''Space Phantoms'' the player's ship looks like an angel, and the enemies appear as different types of insect.

References

External links

*{{KLOV game, id=8947
''Ozma Wars'' at System-16''Ozma Wars'' at the Arcade-history Database
1979 video games Arcade video games Fixed shooters SNK games PlayStation Network games Video games developed in Japan