Starfang
Side-scrolling space shooter with a weapon upgrade chain you choose from, orbiting options, a shield and stage bosses across five sectors. Lose it all when you die, build it back faster.
How to play
- Arrows/WASD fly
- Z fire
- X activate upgrade
- P pause
- Enter or tap to start · M to mute
Touch controls appear automatically on phones and tablets. Your best score is saved in this browser and only reaches a leaderboard if you submit it (privacy). Press the fullscreen button for the full cabinet effect.
About this game
In Starfang, amber cores move a selector along a six-slot upgrade bar, and you decide when to cash it in. From the second sector on, cave walls close in and destroy your ship on contact, and every sector ends with a boss guarding a weak point.
Goal: Survive each sector and destroy its boss; kills, full-wave clears, cores and end-of-sector bonuses all add to your score.
Starfang is an original horizontal shooter built for the browser in the style of 1980s arcade cabinets: pixel art, a chiptune soundtrack and CRT scanlines, all generated in code. It is free, has no ads and needs no download or account.
What’s inside
- 5 sectors: Ash Belt, Verdant Reef, Cinder Forge, Glass Spires and Void Core
- 5 bosses: Iron Hulk, Bloom Mother, Slag Titan, Prism Warden and Hollow Eye
- 6 upgrades: Thrust, Split, Seeker, Orbit, Lance and Aegis
- Endless loops after sector 5, with tougher enemies and multiplied points
- 3 ships, plus extra ships at 20,000, 60,000 and every 60,000 after
- 3,000 bonus for clearing a sector without losing a ship
- Players
- 1 player.
- On a phone
- Drag anywhere to steer the ship relative to your finger while it fires automatically, tap the Upgrade button or the upgrade bar at the bottom to take the selected upgrade, and tap the top strip to pause.
- Round length
- Each sector runs about 70 seconds before its boss, so a full pass through all five sectors takes roughly 8-12 minutes.
Tips
- Destroying all five ships of a line formation pays 1,000 and always drops a core.
- Aegis soaks up three hits and clears nearby enemy shots each time, and while it lasts a cave wall only costs a charge instead of your ship.
- Losing a ship strips your upgrades, but up to three cores float back in and drops are more frequent for about 25 seconds, so rebuild quickly.
Questions
How do upgrades work in Starfang?
Each amber core moves the selector one step along the bar. Press X when it sits on the upgrade you want; upgrades that are already maxed are refused.
What happens after the fifth sector?
The game loops back to Ash Belt as Loop 2. Enemies take more hits, bullets are faster and points are multiplied by the loop number.
Leaderboards Today’s challenge
Today
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Scores are highest first. Your best is read from this browser when you submit; three initials, arcade style.
