''Spheres of Chaos'' is a

multidirectional shooter Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a 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 certain types of charact ...

video game, created by Iain McLeod, with basic gameplay similar to the 1979 arcade game ''

Asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

''. The game has bright colours and patterns, with many enemies on screen at once. The audio is similar to that of ''

Robotron: 2084 ''Robotron: 2084'' (also referred to as ''Robotron'') is a multidirectional shooter developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released in arcades by Williams Electronics in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 in a fictional wo ...

'' and '' Defender''. It was originally written for

RISC OS RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archim ...

on the

Acorn Archimedes Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. The systems are based on Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and the proprietary operating systems Arthur and RISC OS. The fi ...

and released in 1993. In the 2000s it was ported to

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, and PS2 Linux. In October 2007, ''Spheres of Chaos'' was declared

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

Gameplay

The player controls a small grey spaceship. At the start of each level, enemies called ''common aliens'' appear that must be eradicated to complete the level. With each subsequent level, the enemies get more plentiful and powerful. When hit, enemies typically split into smaller versions which must also be eradicated. Black holes also appear that either attract or repel the spaceship. Many

black hole A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravitation, gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other Electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts t ...

s at once may make the game field unnavigable. When a level isn't completed within a certain period of time, enemies called ''bugs'' appear that shoot at the spaceship. Many types of enemies appear in later levels, from ''spinshooters'' to multiplying ''daisies'' and ''bacteria''. Often, when all common aliens are defeated, a boss appears that takes many hits to destroy. When defeated, some enemies provide

power-up In video games, a power-up is an object that adds temporary benefits or extra abilities to the player character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a permanent benefit that can be used at any time chosen ...

s that constantly change colour. A power-up's power is determined by its colour when the spaceship captures it. Up to eight players can take turns playing and have control over a wide variety of options, including quantities of specific enemies, frequency of power-ups, and visual effects.

References

External links

*
Review of ''Spheres of Chaos''
on

Rock, Paper, Shotgun ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' (also rendered ''Rock, Paper, Shotgun''; short ''RPS'') is a UK-based website for reporting on video games, primarily for PC. Originally launched on 13 July 2007 as an independent site, ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' was acquir ...

2000 video games Multidirectional shooters Linux games Acorn Archimedes games PlayStation 2 games Windows games Video games developed in the United Kingdom {{Shmup-videogame-stub