X:8

X:8 was an entry in the 2013 ABBUC contest. It is a side scrolling "button mash" (although it has auto fire) shooter, similar in style to Gradius. Waves of enemies appear that you can shoot from right to left on your screen; some of them will drop power ups of various types:

Double shot - Improves primary weapons from a damage of 1 to 2.

Spread Shot - Slow weapon with damage of 2. Angle shots are ineffective in this version of the game.

Fire Ball - Slow weapon with damage of 3.

Piercing Shot - Fast weapon with damage of 3.

Ray Gun - Fast weapon with damage of 4.

Invulnerability - Places shield around your ship that prevents all damage for a short period of time.

Bomb - Instantly destroys all enemy ships on the screen.

Extra Life - Increases your lives by one up to a maximum of eight.

There are many dangers to dodge; force fields will occasionally block your path; enemies will fire at you from all directions (including "behind" your ship on diagonals).

The game uses clever approaches of leveraging the Atari hardware to have very fast action, either 50 or 60 hz (PAL or NTSC) with up to 15+ sprites on the screen, in addition to all the environmental effects of shots and fields.