Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Zeta Flow: coolest flash game ever

I've filed this one under "linux" even though it isn't strictly speaking a linux game, but it does play well on my linux box with Firefox due to its flash plug-in.

You have a little spaceship, and you go up against some other bigger spaceship. All you have to do is hold down the left mouse button, and dodge what gets thrown at you-- bullets, lasers, and little attach ships. Your actions are pretty simple, but there's a lot of strategy in figuring out what you have to hit first in order to get to the main reactor. I find it very soothing as each level presents you with a problem that is very difficult and very slowly gets easier and easier.

The graphics are simple and stylized, but very pleasing to the eye.

There's even a level editor for you to make your own levels. Here I'm playing against one someone designed as a giant robot.

There's a gallery full of user-submitted games, and you can even sort them by success rate (percent of folks that have completed it before you).

Here's a secret: the program waits until you are ready to start a level. It gives you an invulnerable force field until the first time you shoot (left mouse button). This force field makes you immune to lasers and bullets, AND it destroys the little fighter craft that might sent after you. I've often found it useful to let the little fleet of fighter craft incinerate on my shield before proceeding with starting an actual level. This force field can also be of use if you are being crunched into the far corner of a screen by the enemy ship.

Enjoy.


1 comment:

asdasdg said...

Just to clarify a few things on this blog entry:
The shield is only temporary but the timer on it gets reset every time it is hit. The 'little fighter craft' are actually homing rockets with a limited turn radius and homing capacity (they stop following your ship after a while and just go straight). Users can make their own levels with the easy-to-use level editor. Currently there are over 10000 public levels but more are made almost every week.

Thanks for the review though.

~asdasdg. Zeta Flow website moderator.