Insectroid is a galaga clone for Atari ST. You start the game with 10 lives and gain an extra one every 20,000 points after.Your ships can move all 8 directions within the lower 1/3 of the playing area. This allows you to get right in the alien's faces and commence to reap havoc! Aliens are worth 100,50 and 10 points each. If they are shot while diving then they are worth 10x the original value. Shooting all of the aliens advances you a level. Every 5th wave is a challenge wave, which is a good place to pick up bonus scores. Every 10th wave is a boss wave. Boss waves are hard to beat and it is recommended that you have double firepower when tackling one. Each boss has a different attack pattern and firepower method. All Bosses are VERY fast and have huge amounts of firepower to throw at you. The Boss-O-Meter at the bottom of the screen will show you how much strength the boss has left...sometimes The aliens have two types of shots, straight bombs (which have no intelligence) and smart bombs (Purple spheres that track you). The aliens have a chance of launching these at ALL TIMES. Even while lowering a capture beam. The speed of these shots will increase as the levels increase as will the intelligence of the straight bombs. To gain super firepower you must first allow a Captain Alien (Top Row) to fly down close to the ground. It will then lower a capture beam. Flying into this beam will result in your losing this ship and the alien will drag it back into the formation with it. By shooting the alien who has your ship you gain back the original ship and now have double firepower!! Be careful, as shooting this captured ship destroys it. Also remember that the capture ship doubles the area that can be hit, making it harder to manoeuvre. This sounds like more trouble than it's worth until you get double firepower and start raking aliens like ripe wheat.
