Space Cadet
This is perhaps par for the Game-Maker space shooter course. For the visuals Matthew Groves employed his best MS Paint skills; for the music he raided Sierra’s Space Quest. The game design involves roaming around an inscrutable maze in a sort of a cross between a lunar lander and a Space Invader. The space bar fires lasers at monsters yanked from, I believe, Penguin Pete.
And yet, the game has charm. And it plays well. The laser in particular has a satisfying crunchiness to it. Part of that comes from the sound effects, part from the visual, and part just from the timing of the animation. Movement is precise. Groves seems to have paid actual attention to the difficulty balance. There’s little sense of nonsense about this game, and yet a huge sense of playfulness. Stereo visualizer bars serve as spikes. What seem to be old 1950s B-movie posters animate in the background.
