PixelBoy: Meteor Busters

By: Derek Yu

On: October 26th, 2006

Meteor Busters is a fun little browser-based shooter by the mercenary pixel pushers known as dot-invasion. I like how you can switch between five different ships in the middle of the game, and I REALLY like that each ship has a different weapon that actually affects how you play (my favorite is the exploding darts). Couple this with great graphics and a simple, but effective, combo system, and you’ve got a winner in my book.

(Source: Insert Credit)

Posted in Browser Games, Shoot-em-ups

dessgeega

also check out their kid icarus-inspired forgotten myths game.
chad

uh, stupid of me, but, uh… what’re the controls? I looked around the site, whanged the shit out of my keyboard… nothin’.
Leedar

The playability in “Meteor Busters” is simple:

Use the directional keys (by default: ARROW KEYS) to control your spaceship.
Use the “action” key (by default: SPACE) to fire
Use the “start” key (by default: ENTER) to pause the game, and choose another spaceship.

http://www.dot-invasion.com/dboy/cartridges/001.html
Mazapan

The name of the programmer/ artist is Marmotte.
I’d buy this revamped PixelBoy. PSP > DS > PixelBoy
chad

yeah, I had to click on the screen of the pixelboy for the controls to be active. It’s fun; I like it. I wonder how much cost could be cut off the development of a game like this for say, the gba, versus the development cost of a full color, more complicated game. Or even as a downloadable for the ds?
chad

also, I like the backgrounds– they look like doctored satellite photos?
null

A bit slow for my own tastes, and Flash is like the most stupid technology for making games, really, take that Kid Icarus-esque game as example, it looks great but it runs like a fucking snail! Since when you need more than 450 Mhz to run a fucking 8-bit like game? Flash = Waste of processing power. Director can handle bitmaps better, try that, Dot Invasion crew!
Marmotte

…and Marmotte = Alexandre Renevey ^_^

> Actually, except for the soundtrack, i did everything in “Meteor Busters”. But i got some interested people to collaborate on some new PixelBoy games, so if nobody gives up (you know, those are free projects after all), i hope to release some new games in the future.

> Controls: yes, the next PixelBoy games should be compatible with the “physical” buttons of the PixelBoy itself. “Meteor Busters” was written way before that. And here’s a bonus: in 2003 i released the 1st PixelBoy wannabe game, “Escape the Planet”, a prequel to “Meteor Busters”. Don’t excpet the game to be too great though, haha: http://www.pnflashgames.com/module-pnFlashGames-view-cid-6.phtml

> Backgrounds: i found some great images with google; then i did some work to re-assemble the most interesting parts and create unique locations.

> Flash = waste of processing power: i agree, flash is not that fast; when you play your game offline, it’s really smooth in most cases. Put the same game in a broswer and it’ll start to be extremely slow and slugish… doh!
About director, i lost all my Director skills since several years now, unfortunately…

> Kid Icarus: i’m a HUGE Kid Icarus fan.

> Also, thanks for your nice comments everyone, and thanks for your article Derek!