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Play SpaceGate at Newgrounds (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/544571).

Play SpaceGate at Odo Games (http://www.odogames.com/games.php?gameName=space_gate&width=320&height=387&version=10&color=000000).

SpaceGate is a vertical scrolling shoot-em-up, inspired by the NES era of shooters such as Astro Warrior (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCIcWvkUeLE) and bullet hell games like Xenon 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCAUTrgso8k) and Cave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_'em_up).

More info on the game can be found here (http://barnabybyrne.blogspot.com/2010/05/shooter-engine.html).

Controls
Press 'p' or escape to pause
Change the color filter while paused.
Change the volume levels while paused.

Arcade
Arrow keys or w,a,s,d to move or mouse.
Firing is auto.

Survival
Arrow keys to move WASD to aim
Mouse to move arrow keys to aim

Features
Take control of 5 space stations over 3 difficulty levels.
Over 25 enemy types including 5 bosses and 5 mini bosses, with different attack formations.
Frame rate adjuster: press - and + to add or subtract 10 frames to the frame rate during play.
Mouse navigated gui featuring LCD font.
Gameboy inspired color screen filter during pause.
3 powerup types, cannon missile and side.
High score table integration will be added upon finding a sponsor depending on their domain requirements.
Single life survival mode to be added featuring randomly generated assets and map with increasing difficulty.
Map in between levels scolls to show a preview.


(http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/1183/74404566.png) (http://img685.imageshack.us/i/74404566.png/)

Play SpaceGate at Odo Games (http://www.odogames.com/games.php?gameName=space_gate&width=320&height=387&version=10&color=000000).

The game has also been reviewed by 8bitrocket:

Review of SpaceGate (http://www.8bitrocket.com/2010/08/06/featured-new-flash-retro-game-space-gate/)

Where I wrote a tutorial for the enemy movement:

Tutorial by Badger (http://www.8bitrocket.com/2010/08/06/space-gate-enemy-path-tutorial-by-barnaby-byrne/).

Great work bro, congrats on your first commercial release.  Hope it's the first of many!  I think the addition of coloured enemy bullets has fixed my only real gripe, and it now feels a lot fairer.  You should update your links with the Kongregate build (http://www.kongregate.com/games/MechBadger/space-gate)!

 :coffee:

It's pretty good, but it's not very unique. At least it's pretty hard.

Very good stuff you got going here!  :beer:

I have a few suggestions though, that I feel would make my experience (and probably (hopefully) others) experiences better  :lol:

First off, after I attained some power-ups, I found it very difficult to differ my fire from enemy fire. It doesn't need to be a huge change, just something slight that may catch my eye better.

Secondly, I love keyboard movement in these games opposed to mouse movement, however the mouse gives an advantage due to the huge boost in speed it provides to the player. I don't know an exact solution to this, but I feel that the keyboard movement should be a bit faster.

Other than those two things, for now, the game is quite nice and has a good feel to it.

Edit: The Kongerate build fixes a problem I addressed very well; good job!  :)

Pretty fun game!
It took me a while to figure out that I had to click on one of the "Controls" boxes to start the game (in Arcade mode, at least) - at first I thought I had to click on one of the level numbers to start, but that didn't do anything.

I personally feel that the keyboard movement speed is fine right now. Too fast and it'll be hard to move precisely.

Thanks for the feedback :) I'm glad you played the game through and enjoyed it.
I appreciate it.  And have taken on board it for my next games.

@Superflat: thanks, it's been a long while coming what with working in engineering for so long but I think things are coming together now.  It's a nice feeling to have something released after all my endless demos recently.