Groksteroids
An original space-rock shooter. Your little vector ship drifts through a field of tumbling rocks. Shoot them apart, mind your momentum, and watch out for the alien saucers that turn up in the later waves.
How to play
- Type a name and press Register once if you want your scores on the leaderboard. Without a name you play practice games.
- Press Start game (or Enter, or tap the playfield).
- Turn with Left and Right, push forward with Thrust and shoot with Fire. The ship keeps drifting after you let go of Thrust and slows down gently.
- Everything wraps around the edges of the screen.
- Clear every rock to start the next wave.
Rules
- Large rocks split into two medium rocks, medium into two small ones, and small rocks vanish.
- You can have 4 shots in the air at once, and each one fades after a short distance. Holding Fire keeps shooting at a slower rate. The Auto-fire choice holds it for you.
- You start with 4 ships and earn an extra one every 10,000 points.
- A new ship waits until the centre of the screen is clear, then flashes and is shielded for 3 seconds.
- Hyperspace jumps you to a random spot. There is a small chance (about 1 in 8) that the jump destroys the ship, except while you are shielded. It needs a moment to recharge.
- The first three waves are gentle: few, slow rocks and no saucers. From wave 4 saucers appear. Big saucers drift and shoot at random, small saucers aim at you. Rocks get faster and more numerous up to wave 6 and beyond.
- A game ends after an hour of play.
Scoring
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Large rock | 20 |
| Medium rock | 50 |
| Small rock | 100 |
| Big saucer | 200 |
| Small saucer | 1000 |
Fair scores
When you play under a registered name, the server picks the random seed for your game and the page records only which controls you held and when. When the game ends the server replays that record on its own copy of the game rules (whole-number maths, so both give exactly the same result) and posts the score it gets. A score can't be typed in or edited, and each game can be posted once. Your name is protected by a key kept in this browser; if you clear your browser data you need to register a new name.
Leaderboards and chat
The High scores tab shows each player's best verified score and wave, and Overall shows the site-wide totals. Grok Chat sits in the corner: press it to talk to other players. Use Share on X at the top to tell your friends.
All art and sounds are original, drawn and synthesized in code for this game. Two looks are available in Choices: Classic vector (white lines on black) and Neon Starport (glowing magenta and cyan).
Play at https://rtwl.fun/games/groksteroids/
Made by Lawless Alien, built at the desk by Lawless and Grok. Watch Real Time With @LawlessAlien on YouTube.