Heart of Gold

Vanquish the Vogons... but rescue the rest!

Climb aboard the Heart of Gold and revisit the weird and wonderful universe of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' in this Shmup homage.

CONTROLS

-- USE THE ARROW KEYS TO MOVE YOUR SHIP

-- HIT 'X' TO FIRE YOUR LASER
(but easy does it, Earthling!)

LEVELS

There are three levels featuring some of the fan favourites from Douglas Adams' cult hit, including:

      

L1 - Arthur Dent(s)

L2 - Whales

L3 - Mice

Collect 10 of these to activate your Improbability Drive and progress to the next section of hyperspace. Additionally, you can collect extra lives by grabbing four of any of the items which accompany these friends, namely:

      

L1 - Cups of Tea

L2 - Towels

L3 - Petunias

But watch out for the three different types of Vogon who will seek to destroy you in the most unpoetic ways possible.

      

JUST SURVIVE OR SEEK THE MAGIC 42!

This is a Shmup which is about tactics as well as blasting. If you seek the ultimate answer of 42, you'll need to avoid lasering your friends while keeping the Vogons at bay.  Every friend lasered means points deducted from your final total... save 10 friends and collect four bonus items on each level for a potentially perfect score.

Each of the Vogon enemies (green, red and blue) has distinct attacks, behaviours and hit point totals. Learn these and you'll be halfway to an almost infinitely improbable victory over Life, the Universe and Everything.

ALL feedback - positive and negative - very welcome...  but no Marvins please!

CREDITS

Thanks to Lexaloffle Games for Pico-8, a brilliant fantasy console for making retro games like this one: https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

Big thanks to Krystman's (https://krystman.itch.io/) amazing Shmup tutorials on the Lazy Devs YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/LazyDevs) and the community on the Lazy Devs Discord server.

Special thanks to the Buchanan clan for playtesting and my wonderful wife for her patience - Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters are on me...

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