Skyfire

Coming Soon

Skyfire is currently in development. Check back soon!

What You’ll Build

Fixed-screen space shooter. Player ship versus descending enemy waves.

Control your ship at the bottom. Enemies descend in formations. Shoot them down before they reach you. Classic arcade action — but on a machine with no hardware sprites. Every pixel is your responsibility.

Why This Game?

After Shatter’s smooth ball movement, Skyfire teaches you to manage multiple moving objects. The Spectrum has no sprites, so you’ll learn the techniques that made games like R-Type possible:

• Draw and move player sprites with masking
• Spawn and manage projectiles efficiently
• Create enemy wave patterns and formations
• Handle multiple collision types simultaneously
• Design beeper sound effects with pitch variation
• Build difficulty curves that feel fair

By the end, you’ll have a complete shooter running smoothly.

Skills You’ll Master

• Sprite drawing — software sprites with masking
• Player movement — responsive ship control
• Projectile spawning — bullet management
• Enemy patterns — wave formations
• Multiple collisions — bullets vs enemies vs player
• Beeper sound — pitch variation for effects
• Sprite masking — clean graphics over backgrounds
• Difficulty curves — balanced progression
• High scores — display and storage

Prerequisites

Complete Game 2: Shatter first. You’ll need the smooth movement and collision skills from that game.

Time Investment

64 units at 60-90 minutes each. Roughly 64-96 hours total, spread across 4 phases.