Luftrausers

Hover mouse over screenshots for commentary.

December 2014

My plane is the darker-colored object near the center. I've just blown up something.	That like in the middle of the screen is the horizon, with a boat on the ocean and my dark-colored plane about to ram into it.	You can tell how much damage you've taken by how much of the sky turns white and closes in around you. I'm almost dead in this screenshot.
		Me trying to evade fire from both planes and an aircraft carrier.
There are objectives to chip away at each time you play.	Some enemy planes shoot streams of bullets at you.
This plane doesn't turn well but can go super fast.	Taking out these ships is pretty tough business.

Luftrausers is indeed a unique game. You play as a fighter pilot and just try to take out as many enemies as you can before you are shot down. You control by pressing forward for thrust and left and right to steer. The controls take some getting used to but they create fun and intense gameplay. There are a variety of planes you can unlock that each have unique abilities. You can also unlock different projectiles such as machine gun bullets, lasers, or even homing missiles.

If you don't get hit for awhile then you're plane will fix itself (in a miracle of mechanics, apparently machines also experience automatic regeneration much like futuristic space marines!), so you can take a few risks before backing off to recharge. The longer you play the more difficult it gets, with fighter jets attacking you, then aircraft carriers, and ultimately a screen-filling blimp!

As you can see from the screenshots below, the entire game has only 4 colors and they are almost all the same. However, this just serves to make the action all the more clear and less cluttered, and it's a design choice that actually makes a lot of sense.

Overall I found the gameplay to be quite well polished and a lot of fun! I often wound up playing for much longer than I intended!

The Therapist Gamer

My plane is the darker-colored object near the center. I've just blown up something.

That like in the middle of the screen is the horizon, with a boat on the ocean and my dark-colored plane about to ram into it.

You can tell how much damage you've taken by how much of the sky turns white and closes in around you. I'm almost dead in this screenshot.

Me trying to evade fire from both planes and an aircraft carrier.

There are objectives to chip away at each time you play.

Some enemy planes shoot streams of bullets at you.

This plane doesn't turn well but can go super fast.

Taking out these ships is pretty tough business.

Luftrausers