Copyright Suisoft Limited 2012
The alien horde from the Ares Nebula are invading our solar system. The Earth star fleet has been decimated. You are the only hope... as usual.
Plug in a gamepad if you want to use it. The game requires it to be installed before starting up.
Start the game using the Starfire - Ares Nebula desktop icon.
Enter your name and click OK to create a new profile.
Your score and control configuration will be stored against your pilot
profile.
Enter your email address and click Send if you want to sign up for the Suisoft
Games newsletter.
You can click No Thanks if you would rather not. You can always sign up from
the website or via the Newsletter button at the bottom of the main menu.
Click 'Start New Game' with the mouse.
(You can also select it with the gamepad and press button 1 (A) or use arrow
keys and Enter).
Choose the difficulty level. If you are a bit rusty with shoot-em-ups, click Easy.
Click the 'Start' button.
Move your ship with the arrow keys or gamepad.
Press Left Control or gamepad button A to fire. You can hold down the button to fire a burst.
Hold down Left Alt to charge up a plasma bomb. Note the bomb growing on the front of the ship. Let go of the button to release the bomb.
You will notice the energy bar at the bottom left of the screen. When you are hit by enemy shots, your energy is depleted. If the energy runs out you ship is destroyed. Firing and charging plasma bombs also consume energy. Your ship's energy is automatically regenerated when you are not firing.
Bombers drop glowing silver pods that can be collected to increase your energy. The energy can be increased above 100% this way but will not regenerate above 100%.
You have a number of lives, indicated by the ship icons above the energy bar. When your ships run out, the game is over.
Destroying enemies earns score. The score has a multiplier applied based on the chosen difficulty level as follows:
| Space Slug | 0.25 |
| Easy | 0.5 |
| Normal | 1.0 |
| Hard | 1.25 |
| Insane | 1.5 |
| Impossible | 2.0 |
Hardcore mode (chosen from the Start New Game screen) further multiplies the score by 2. In hardcore mode, enemy shots instantly kill rather than reducing your energy.
Every 25,000 points (with multiplier applied) you are awarded a bonus life.
If you complete the game by destroying the last boss you will receive a score bonus of 1000 points (times multiplier) for each life left.
Use Plasma Bombs on large enemies
Larger enemies such as bombers and bosses require the Plasma Bomb weapon to kill effectively. Hold down the secondary fire button (Left Alt / Joystick 2 by default) to fully charge up a plasma bomb then let go to release it.
Use Plasma Bombs to destroy groups of enemies
Plasma bombs can also be used to destroy large groups of enemies. When a bomb hits a smaller target it fragments and destroys surrounding enemies.
Bosses are only vulnerable during their final charge
The bosses (Destroyer and Dreadnought) take a lot of punishment before they are killed. When they have taken sufficient damage to be finished off with a single Plasma Bomb they will billow smoke. Wait until the final charge then let loose.
Listen to the Music
The attacks in the game are designed around the music.When the music builds up to a peak, this will coincide with a large attack wave or boss charge.
Hold fire to regenerate energy
If your energy is very low, you may need to resort to dodging until it recharges. This requires a careful balance as leaving too many enemies alive will result in a screen full of bullets.
Hardcore mode is hard
The hardcore mode option (on the Start New Game screen) disables the shields on your ship. You are much more vulnerable as a single hit from an enemy bullet kills you. You will need nerves of steel and fingers like a Cobra (if they had fingers).
The main menu is the first screen you will see after creating a profile and optionally joining the mailing list. You can show the menu during the game by pressing ESCAPE.
The options are as follows:
This screen is displayed when the game starts up with multiple pilots added. It can also be accessed via the 'Press here if you're not <name>' button on the main menu.
To choose an existing pilot, click the name then OK.
To keep the current pilot choose Cancel. Note that this option will be Exit Game
instead if the screen is shown at startup.
To create a new pilot, choose 'Create New Pilot', enter a name and click OK.
You can rename a pilot by clicking the name then 'Rename'. Change the name and click OK.
Finally, you can delete a pilot by clicking the name then 'Delete'.
This screen allows you to choose the difficulty and mode. When you have selected a mode click Start. Click Cancel to go back to the main menu.
The six difficulties vary the damage inflicted on the player, the speed of the game, aggressiveness of enemy firing and number of enemies. Each difficult has a score multiplier (explained in the Scoring section) therefore choosing a higher difficulty results in more score per kill.
The mode indicates the player damage model. Default means that enemy shots kick in your shields and deplete the ship's energy. In Hardcore mode you don't have a shield. Enemy shots kill instantly making the game significantly harder.
The controls screen allows you to choose your own keys or gamepad controls. Click on a control slot (e.g. where it says 'Up Arrow'). Flashing arrows will appear indicating that you should press the control you want to bind (e.g. Space).
You can reset the controls back to their original settings using the 'Reset to Defaults' option.
When you have finished customising the controls, click OK. To abort click Cancel.
You can also change the gamepad sensitivity using the Dead Zone slider. This controls the size of the 'centered' position of the joystick on an analogue controller. If you set it too low you may find that the ship drifts if a gamepad stick is off centre.
From here you can change the Sound Volume, Music Volume and Video Brightness.
OK accepts the changes and returns to the main menu. Cancel aborts.
From here you can sign up to the Suisoft Games Newsletter. Enter your email address at the flashing cursor and click Send.
This screen is displayed automatically when a new profile is created and can be accessed via the 'Newsletter' button on the main menu.
Code, Graphics and Sound Effects:
Gary Marples
Music:
Composer: Gustav Holst
Arranger: Keith Salmon
Publisher: Lynne Publishing
Supplier: Shockwave Sound
Fonts:
Third Party Libraries / Modules
SFML 1.6 by Laurent Gomila (zlib/png License)
SFML includes the following libraries:
GLEW:
(Credits)
(BSD License)
The OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library
Copyright (C) 2002-2008, Milan Ikits <milan ikits[]ieee org>
Copyright (C) 2002-2008, Marcelo E. Magallon <mmagallo[]debian org>
Copyright (C) 2002, Lev Povalahev
All rights reserved.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF
THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Open-AL (dynamically
linked - LGPL License)
libsndfile (dynamically
linked - LGPL License)
stb_vorbis (public domain)
libjpeg (public domain)
libpng (zlib/png license)
SOIL (public domain)
FreeType (FreeType License)
Portions of this software are copyright (C) 2005. The FreeType
Project (www.freetype.org). All rights reserved.