The game is absolutely addicting. It’s virtually impossible to die. Once a ship loses life, it goes back to a glass pod to regenerate. From there, you can combine ships of the same to upgrade them. You basically keep on playing to upgrade your to the highest level ship. Every time you buy a ship, the price gets higher. So you have to shoot more aliens to collect more coins. So cool, it’s hard to stop playing this game.

In this game, you manage three resources: slot space, coins, and gems. Coins are easy enough. You use them to buy spacecraft (“shooters”) and earn them through shooting aliens. Meanwhile, you gain gems from brief boss fights. This rare currency pays for upgrades and traps. Slot spaces store and repair your damaged shooters. Any damaged shooter that can’t find a slot is destroyed.

Thus, the main focus is managing the game economy while trying to survive. You must contend with ramp up costs and upgrades of unpredictable effectiveness. Fortunately, you can try, try again, as long as you have lives. Restarting at the lower levels resets your shooters’ health. In this game, retreat is a valid strategy. The main drawback is that it takes trial and error to find the right shooters for the job. Some ‘upgrades’ may slow down your rate of fire.

While difficult, the complex management system is the game’s main appeal. Watching the advanced shooters dismember alien hordes is satisfying to behold. Prepare to sink hours away waiting for enough coins to buy more advanced ships. And if real life beckons, you can always pause the game.