''TerraFire'' 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 ...

for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

. It was originally released on October 1, 1997IGN page
/ref> as

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...

with a demo limiting the player to only the first eight levels. In 2005, ''TerraFire'' was re-released as

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 ...

. The game is best called a

shoot 'em up 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 chara ...

, but unlike most games of this genre, the player is free to move in any direction, with physics 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. ...

''. Bullet patterns from enemies and obstacles are also far more sparse and predictable, and there are no bosses. The full version of the game has a total of 27 levels, where every fourth level is a

bonus level A bonus stage (also known as a bonus level, bonus round, or special stage) is a special level within a video game designed to reward the player or players, and typically allows the player to collect extra points or power-ups. Bonus stage either ...

which is a clone of the aforementioned ''Asteroids''. The normal levels, which scroll both horizontally and vertically and wrap horizontally, have gravity and are completed by finding a nuke and dragging it out of the top of the level. ''TerraFire'' uses

pre-rendered Pre-rendering is the process in which video footage is not rendered in real-time by the hardware that is outputting or playing back the video. Instead, the video is a recording of footage that was previously rendered on different equipment (typic ...

3D graphics and animation.

References

External links

Official site
1997 video games Multidirectional shooters DOS games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Windows games {{Action-videogame-stub