RIP-OFF

OBJECTIVE

You pilot a lone ship defending 8 canisters clustered at the centre of the field. Waves of alien tanks invade to grab a canister and drag it off-screen. This is Players vs Entropy — there is no winning, only holding back the inevitable for as long as you can.

• Game over when all 8 canisters have been stolen, or when all your lives are lost.
• A shot enemy drops its canister where it sits; it can be re-grabbed by another tank.

CONTROLS

LIVES

• You start with 5 lives.
• A life is lost when an enemy ship or enemy beam hits you (unless a shield deflects it).
• After dying you respawn at the centre-bottom after ~1.5 seconds, while lives remain.
• Extra life awarded for every 7,000 points (7k, 14k, 21k …).

WAVES & ENEMIES

• Enemies per wave = wave × random(1..3) + wave. So wave 1 spawns 2–4 ships, wave 3 spawns 6–12, wave 5 spawns 10–20, and so on.
• They arrive in 1, 2 or 3 squadrons (chosen at random), the total split evenly between them.
• Each squadron enters together from one random screen edge and shares a single target: one canister (~70%) or the player ship (~30%, forced if no canisters remain).
• Clear a wave to earn wave × 100 bonus points and +5 mines.

ENEMY AI

Each tank runs a layered behaviour set adapted from the 1980 original:

• Seek — turn toward the assigned canister and decelerate on approach to avoid orbiting it.
• Attach & flee — latch onto the canister, pick a random exit, and tow it off-screen.
• Take mine instead — if a closer free canister is passed, swap to it (trading assignments with whoever held it) rather than driving stupidly past.
• Attack — if the player comes within range (or for player-hunter squadrons, always), chase at full speed without braking and fire a short-range beam. Enemy fire is deliberately inaccurate (random spread).
• Avoid buddies — steer away from nearby tanks so squadrons spread out.

ENEMY SPEEDS

PLAYER SHIP

• Round body with an orange forward cannon; rotates by a slightly randomised step for fine aim.
• Top speed ~216 px/s, low drag so it coasts and keeps momentum.
• Collisions are clamped to the screen edges — you cannot leave the field.

WEAPONS

• Cannon — limited to 20 shots per 4 seconds (rolling window; remaining count shown in the HUD).
• Triple cannon — unlocks at wave 6. Each trigger pull fires 3 bullets that spread apart very slowly. Still counts as one shot against the rate limit.
• Mines — press X to drop one (you earn 5 per cleared wave). A mine blinks green, accelerating until it detonates after 2 seconds, destroying anything within ~60px — including you, so clear the area.

SHIELD

• Unlocks at wave 3 (you'll be notified) and activates automatically when an enemy ship rams you or an enemy beam hits you.
• Appears as a blue octagon around the ship and stays up for 2 seconds; anything that strikes it is destroyed and you take no damage. After 2 seconds it switches off — but only once you're clear of immediate danger.
• After it turns off there is a 10-second cooldown before it can activate again. The HUD shows READY, ON, or CD x.x.

COLLISIONS & EXPLOSIONS

• Every destroyed ship bursts into a multi-coloured starburst whose pixels fly outward until off-screen.
• Ramming an enemy (with no shield up) triggers an extra-large blast that destroys every enemy within ~115px — but still costs you a life.
• Blasts spare the canisters, since destroying your own cargo would be self-defeating.

DIFFICULTY SCALING

• All ship speeds (enemy and player) creep up +1% per wave, compounding — subtle early, noticeable deep in.
• Combined with the growing enemy count, each wave is faster and more crowded than the last.

SCORING