Galacticon
Galacticon is a video game with the look and feel of arcade cabinet games from the early 80’sin the style of Williams classics: “Defender” or “Joust”, with the gameplay of legendary “Jetpac”, and with touches of “puzzle” to increase bonus points and enter your score in the local high score table or even in worldwide high score table.
STORY:
Humans are tiny creatures of an outer belt planet that thanks to their biomechanical monstrosities have invaded, exploited ans enslaved most species in the galaxy.
The interestellar council has met for the first time in eons ans has determined that there is only one option left to exterminate this plague… an option that has always been feared beacuse it could be as powerful as dangerous:
Invoke the Galacticon, a deadly legendary creature -half God, half machine- and pray everything goes well…
KEY FEATURES:
• Awesome gameplay.
• Direct and frantic action.
• 8-bit aesthetics
• Infinite levels with a progressive difficulty curve.
• Extremely smooth and precise control.
• Easy to play … difficult to master.
• Optimized to be used in arcade cabinet machines.
• Secret bonus on each level.
• Local Hi-Scores table, and worldwide table through QR code reading.
Game Discussion
Steam User 21
A mix of Defender, Joust and Killer Queen (economic victory). Straightforward controls. Scoring mechanics that lend to strategic play. Online leaderboards. Cool lore. This game is arcade to the bone!
Steam User 12
Introduction
Galacticon is a retro arcade inspired game, a mix between Defender and Joust with puzzle mechanics. Capture humans and then fly them back to your ship, reach the boss, defeat him and start over.
Gameplay
You have a regular fire button and a button to toggle auto-fire on/off. There are power ups to pick up in the form of shields, weapon upgrades, bombs and lives. Gems will just give points. The humans you pick up are placed in the four corners of your ship and are vulnerable. You can deposit them in cages. The more you drop off at once the more points they reward. You get bonus points according to the colours of the humans you put together. You have limited time to collect all humans to fill the cages.
Once all the cages are filled you have to transport them back to your ship. This section is different per level, but basically you need to collect as much gems as you can and not get hit. every 8 levels you face a boss and the game loops to the beginning at a higher difficulty.
Leaderboard
There's only a local leaderboard for Steam but you get a QR code that lets you upload your score to a global cross platform leaderboard. I find it a bit cumbersome to do each time but you need to do it to participate in a contest and it unlocks tips and extras. There are Win10 apps that will read the QR code from your clipboard so you don't have to reach for your mobile all the time. To capture the QR code in your clipboard you can use (the shortcut for) Snip and Sketch.
I do really hope a Steam leaderboard will be added because the game is great for score chasing and competing with others but doing so anonymously is not as much fun.
Video
A gameplay recording where I score 2938200 (lvl26):
Steam User 8
More neoclassical arcade goodness! The arena says Joust. The flashing iridescence of the beam weapons and tiny-guy rescue says Defender. Smooth, responsive controls and the fact that you could theoretically play forever make it a prescription for the score-attack crowd or virtually any gamer who wants some instantaneous -- or unexpectedly long -- excitement! If you're a one-and-done type (me most of the time), there's even a boss at the end of the loop!
A satirical bite is waiting! The alien federation summons the dread Galacticon to do away with the human menace, but the aliens you rescue are still so obsessed with their stinky ethnic hatreds (which probably define their cultures more than art or architecture) that, if you fail to heed how many blues, reds, and browns you stuff into each rescue pod, the dumb bastards will shoot each other on the way home!
I think this game is pretty good!
Steam User 4
It is a great little arcade game. Just the kind that you want to concentrate on and maximize your scores each round to make a good high score. And i suppose that is also the only real con: This thing requires time -> Want to get into top 10 or even top 5? No save function so better get to it. Top spots require a few hours of good game play. Very much doable though so roll up them sleeves and get into it.
Cheap good arcade fun. Most recommended for people who are into this. I am very much into this.
Steam User 4
If you like 80s arcade games, get this! Here are all of the arcade games it reminds me of: Lizard Wizard (flying and shooting horizontally on a single screen), Defender (laser look/sound and rescue), Joust (level and player look), Killer Queen (collecting and depositing items in holes), Blaster (level type changing each round). It has local and global leaderboards (scan on-screen QR code to get on leaderboard) and secrets too. I played it on my arcade cabinet here, and below that is a leaderboard attack video.
Steam User 2
Saw this on Talk About Games with Ryan Schott & Mike Matei. Single-screen arcade style is the retro experience I didn't know I needed. Its not something I'm going to pour hundreds of hours into, but makes a fantastic few-minutes-to-kill pickup & play job. All for the low low price of 20 credits, plus the added benefit of not needing to wait for mom to bring you down to the pizzeria, begging her for quarters, and hoping the cabinet hasn't been swapped for a rigged crane game.
10/10, would wage war on humans to rescue racist aliens again.
Steam User 2
Perfectly solid fake retro game. Actually "gets it" (see Locomalito games, Game Center CX 1 and 2). Well-made from a software standpoint (supports 4:3 and 16:9, works with my kind of weird controller setup without any fuss).