My ninth Star Citadel gallery. As the game progresses it gets more difficult, and the player deaths start racking up: just like the original Star Castle arcade game.
Note that Star Citadel has two variants: a modern version, from which these screenshots are taken, and a classic version, which is designed to play as much like the original Star Castle as possible.
Click on the images to see larger versions.
Post-bounce, I'm bailing across to the other side of the screen to see if I can press a succesful attack from there.
Well, there's some damage to the shields going on here but, overall, this doesn't look hugely promising.
Still, I back off, come back around, and manage to press a successful attach whilst dodging incoming cannon fire.
This is where things are getting a bit more serious. This is the beginning of a level but you can see the cannon's already managed to get off a very accurately targeted shot, and a mine has already spawned and is heading straight for my ship. My wild firing is doing absolutely nothing.
I take evasive action, but it's clearly too late.
Yep, totally too late, and the fact I managed to take out the mine is absolutely no consolation. Again, it's probably not apparent from these shots, but in Star Citadel the energy projectile fired by the cannon has a very primitive homing ability that becomes more pronounced on higher levels. In Star Castle, by contrast, whilst the energy projectile gets faster (and, I believe, larger), it always flys straight.
Predictably, an epic explosion ensues.
I'm back in the game with renewed vigour and mount a deadly scything attack on the cannon, which penetrates all three shield layers in one go, leading to the immediate destruction of the cannon. Nice. Only problem is that energy projectile.
This must be my lucky level though because I bounce off the shields an dmanage to escape the projectile. Jammy!
My luck doesn't hold though. Another new level, and this time the cannon has managed to land a shot right on me. This is going to end very badly.
And it does. My spaceship is toast.
Still, I am immediately back at it, super-aggressive, and manage to destroy two of the three mines, as well as causing considerable shield damage.