Grid Wars is a freeware shmup for the PC based on Geometry Wars. Grid Wars is a throw back to the games of old like Galaga or Space Invaders with enough variations to the formula to please the modern gamer.
The object of Grid Wars is to kill waves of the evil shapes without coming in contact with them. The style of the game has a Tron-esque feel to it, bright florensent colors with simple drawn lines and loads of light bloom. The player must navigate their ship in eight possible directions (up, down, left, right, or combinations of directions to move diagonally) in a square playfield and can shoot in the same eight directions. The playfield is overlayed with a grid that has twenty different visual configurations with stars off in the background. The playfield grid is stretched by the ships shots and "black holes". This has two effects, an interesting graphical addition and representation of a gravitational pull or push that effects objects and the ships controls.
Everything hit by shots or destoyed grants a certain score, the exception is when a bomb is used, no score is given. Once certain score checkpoints are made, depending on the difficulty setting, power-ups, extra lives (1-Up), or extra bombs are put in the playfield that must be touched to retrieve. "Black holes" can pull in power-ups detroying them or they will disappear over time if not picked up. After a set amount of points are met a point combo will be triggered that multipliers to points can be gained. The first multiplier granted is 2x, then 3x, and so on.
Special Items[ | ]
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Bombs have the devastating force of wiping out the entire playfield in one shot. To be used when the ship is pinned in a corner with no escape, bombs have the nasty side-effect of erasing all point multipliers back down to x1. Power-ups are not effected by bombs and remain on the field after detonation. Three bombs are available at the beginning of medium and two in a hard difficulty game. A new bomb is spawned after 150,000 points in medium and 250,000 in Hard difficulty. The maximum bomb is capped at 9. |
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An extra player add one extra life. If an object is touched by the ship it will explode clearing the playfield much like a bomb, any power-ups not collected disapper also. Point combos are reduced to x1 and any power-ups collected go away after a life is lost except for extra cannons, they are reduced by one each death. The maximum life is capped at 9. |
Power-ups[ | ]
The various power-ups detailed below can all be gained at the same time, the odds of this happening is very low due to the duration time of power-ups being 15 – 30 seconds.
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The Back Shooter allows the ship to fire projectiles from the front and the rear, I'll skip the obvious joke. Not as destructive as the other power-ups, lasts around 15 seconds. | 
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The Side Shooter allows the ship to fire projectiles from the side and the front. With this power up you can easily clear the entire playfield. Lasts around 15 seconds. | 
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Super shots turn the ships projectiles red, they have the ability to go through enemies possibly hitting anything behind them. Due to the fact that most objects take just one hit to destroy the entire field can be cleared very quickly. Lasts about 10 seconds. | 
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Bouncy shots turn the ships projectiles green, they have the ability to bounce off of the playfields walls. Coupled with the super shot it is the most powerful power-up combo in the game. Lasts around 15 seconds. | 
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Extra cannon ups the ships amount of shots by one, ship begins with two, maximum is four. After a death extra cannons are reduced by one. Extra cannon has no duration. | 
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Faster shot increases bullet speed. |
Cheat mode[ | ]
There is a cheat mode that is easy to use. Just enable cheat mode by hitting F1 and you are able to use the cheats below.
- F1 - enable cheatmode
- F2 - toggle god mode
- 1 - side shooters
- 2 - back shooters
- 3 - super shots
- 4 - bouncy shots
- x - extra cannon
- z - faster shots
- p - pause/freeze
- o - resume/step(while holding P)
External links[ | ]
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