Torus Trooper

[673f4612f0f08Kolya]

Tags: °shmup °retronLately I've been told to check out Dylan Fitterer's AudioSurf. The game plays like a WinAmp visualisation with a simple puzzle game on top. (Some of you may remember Klax.) It can read songs you choose from your HD and creates tracks from them to play on, meaning that the track hops to the beat and multicoloured blocks appear. If you don't know what music is, do not despair, Valve have provided the Orange Box soundtrack for use in the game.
AudioSurf is fun, for about 30 seconds. Then the gameplay gets so boring that all you can think of is to load the next song. Because collecting coloured blocks while scooting down a threelane just doesn't cut it in the long run.

If you're like me you might just prefer something faster... A game where you can shoot down multitudes of enemies while zipping down a winding tunnel mesh at lightspeed.
Torus Trooper by Kenta "Saba" Cho does not care about the music you play. But it delivers incredibly fast paced action. And it's free and a lot more fun.
 
Controls
Movement: Arrow keys | NumPad | WASD | Joystick
Fire: Z | Left-Ctrl | .
Charge Shot / Break: X | Left-Alt | Left-Shift | /
Pause: P

Comand Line Startup Options
-res x y          Screen resolution
-window         Windowed mode
-brightness n  Brightness (n = 0 - 100, default = 100)
-luminosity n   Luminosity (n = 0 - 100, default = 0)
-nosound       No sound
-reverse         Reverse shoot key and charge shot key

Create a shortcut from tt.exe, in the shortcut properties enter the startup option directly after the path, like this:

Code: [Select]

"C:\Games\Torus Trooper\tt.exe" -res 1600 1200
Hints

• Your time is running out in the upper left corner. Shoot boss enemies to gain more time.
• You can also get more time by reaching the next score line. That's the small number counting down in the upper right corner.
• The bigger number top right is your points.
• When you see a boss, charge your shot. This slows you down so you don't zip past him.
• You can destroy the red bullets with a charged shot.
• When you reached a new level you can always restart from there in a new game lateron.
• Barrel roll. Do it.

For the version available here I have replaced the rather generic techno score with silent OGG files. So there's no music, just SFX.
Play your own music in the background or replace the OGG files in sound/musics.
If you want the game including the techno score, download it here, otherwise below.

[673f4612f1125X-Tech]

Another cool shmup mix. This game is like wipeout crossed with manic shmup. Totally fast and avesome. Music is nice too.

[673f4612f1310SusuKacangSoya]

Sorry for the 9-year necropost (you probably won't be able to read this), but I'd like to thank you for making a post on it. TIL the command line options as well as that score line mechanic. I always wondered what exactly dictates how we get time, aside from the final bosses.

Everyone playing this game who notices the speedometer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Y7aCT9kis

[673f4612f1504Kolya]

Hello SusuKacangSoya, I can read you just fine.

TT is a fun little game but the counter mechanic isn't immediately obvious. I think I my have found out about it in a readme file? Not sure and I cannot check right now.

Too bad that Kenta "Saba" Cho's website is down now. I think he had more games.
Anyway, since you like TT, Warning Forever may also be your cup of tea. Or any of the games tagged as shmup here (see the first post to find clickable tags).