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Gameplay basics for the multiplayer matches.
Multiplayer structure
Each Early Access multiplayer match lasts for 5 minutes, and at the end of that time, the player with the highest score, wins!
Every minute, the game choses randomly some chunks of enemies from a pool, and send the chunks to each the player screen in different order, so the total worth of enemies is the same for each player screen. The enemies are tougher and more valuable with each passing minute.
Every minute, there will be two MegaHealth powerups spawned, one for each player screen (one at 20 seconds into the minute, the other at 40 seconds into the minute). The order in which they appear is random, and picking them will give you extra 100 HP, to a maximum of 200.
At 1:30 and 4:00 a boss will appear for each player. Bosses have modules that need to be destroyed first, before being able to damage the boss itself. The boss and modules usually provide a lot of points when destroyed
Weapons and powers
The players have access to 4 weapons:
- Machinegun – the default weapon, always firing and with unlimited ammo, causing just a little damage, and mostly useful in the first half, when enemies are easier to destroy.
- Shotgun (orange) – shoots in a cone, the shells travels fast but do less damage as they travel farther. Deadly in close range, not so useful or precise at long range.
- Rockets (red) – fired in pairs, travel very slowly, but each does plenty of splash damage on impact.
- Railgun (purple) – instantaneous firing, insane amount of damage, passes through more targets dealing less damage each time. Big cooldown and pretty easy to miss moving targets at distance.
Before a match, each player get to choose one Special Power for that match. The Powers slowly accumulate usages over time. The player can then choose when to activate this Power, in order to enhance his preferred style of play, or maybe to counter his opponent.
The options are:
- Double Damage – doubles the weapons of all weapons for a few seconds
- Invulnerability – makes you impervious to damage against damage for a short time. Except from ramming into bosses, which will kill you. Also, ramming ships don’t provide you points.
- Shockwave – instant radial wave of damage to all enemies in a big area, damage decreases with the distance. Also, destroys all projectiles in that area.
- EMP – stuns all targets in a small area around you and disables any active Double Damage or Invulnerability in that area.
Enemies
- Runners – these little fast guys don’t shoot, but are designed to do a lot of damage if they happen to ram you (or you to ram into them)
- Ciders – usually come from the sides, have decent health, and spam a lot of rockets in all the directions
- Loners – easily recognizable by they colored shields. They can be destroyed only by using the weapon matching their shield color ( Orange – Shotgun, Red – Rockets, Purple – Railgun)
- Jumpers – Able to Blink between screens, fire lasers, and difficult to hit because of their ship profile. Extremely annoying overall
- Cloakers – Cloaked and usually having unexpected paths, they are visible only then shooting and when getting hit
- Scroller – Flower shape, lots of health, many points. Can easily spread bullets all over the screen if ignored too long
- Enigma – bulky and sturdy ship, killing it can either heal you, damage you, or give you nothing.
Scoring and tips
In multiplayer, the player screen in divided intro 3 horizontal scoring zones. The lower third has multiplier 1x, the middle third has multiplier 2x, and the upper third has multiplier 3x. So for each enemy killed, you get it’s points x the respective multiplier. It is way riskier staying at the top of the screen, and risk should be rewarded!
At the same time, all the enemies killed in the opponent screen are worth double the zone’s multiplier. That means that your multipliers would be 2x, 4x and 6x respectively. You will still get 2x multiplier for killing the enemy boss, and no multiplier for fragging the opposing player.
Fragging the opposing player gives you points, while substracting a small amount from him, for dying. Don’t forget that the match is won by having the most points after 5 minutes!
Blink timer refreshes every minute, giving you 10 seconds of Blink time (this does not stack, if you don’t use it, it is lost)
Additionally, some of the following may seem obvious, others not:
- You can easily run out of ammo if you are button-mashing. The Machinegun can only help you that much, but won’t do anything against the Boss.
- On respawn, you get some ammo, compensation for the lost score. Sometimes it is an efficient way to obtain ammo.
- Each ammo pack that you snatch from your opponent’s screen is, well.. less ammo for him. Same goes for the MegaHealth you steal from him. And same goes the other way around.
- Observing the chunks received by your opponent might give you a heads up about what you will come on your screen in the near-future .
- You can learn the times the boss and Megahealth come and prepare for them.
- The leader can change pretty easily, so stay alert to the end.