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Mach 9.9 is one of the DOS games made by InterAction studios.

This video first shows a test level that came with the game, then a level I made to show off other content in this game, then the level editor tool.

This is an arcade shoot-em-up game in the style of Raptor which two players can play (if the other one joins in). Players have to defeat enemies that come their way in order to get a high score. Some enemies will drop a powerup that improves your weapon. Players are also equipped with a few "smart bombs" which will deal massive damage to every enemy present if used, similarly to missiles in Chicken Invaders but used instantly.

Some of the concepts here (two players, powerups, special weapons) were later reused in Chicken Invaders (DX Version). The ship engine sprite in that game was taken from this one. Curiously, one of the enemies resembles the Muller spacecraft seen in these games.

The game is left in a relatively unfinished state. There are multiple sprites and concepts that were not implemented into the game, and the only level available is a short test level, after which the game closes. The game's code is designed so that only the level with the filename "1" is played. The first power level a player has is very powerful compared to the ones that come after, likely present to make testing easier. Later power levels are also relatively unbalanced; eventually your weapon will become 10 times stronger, making most of the enemies in the game very easy to destroy. A debug sprite preview can be enabled by pressing Ctrl. The game's code itself contains many commented out sections or ones marked for removal. One section indicates it started development in VGA ENGINE III before moving to UVE32. Player data is stored alongside enemy data, which is where the differences between the two players arise, as the second player is slower than the first for some reason. The enemies have two sets of actions, first one activated when they spawn and second one after the first one is over. Some of these actions (for example jump left, right, bottom) are broken. Some enemies here can be unbalanced as they rapidly fire highly damaging projectiles. There is some extra unused debug code for showing the amount of certain types of objects and the current position of the level. There's only one set of bonuses and power levels available, but the game's code supports up to 11 different ones.

The game files are all outside of the WAD file. Most of those files are PCX and FLI work files that would be later turned into sprites. Most of them were worked on between August 1995 and January 1996, with some minor changes in May 1996, and the code itself being last modified on October 26th, 1997. There are also two old files from September 1994, with the palette and tiles from Cobra Strike 1. At first it was likely reusing Cobra Strike tiles. One of the files is a .DEM file, used by VistaPro, a 3D landscape simulation program. It might have been used for generating 3D landscapes seen in other games, but here it's been also used for making tiles to be used by the game, starting from September 1995. There are various sprites for planes, tanks, warships, as well as a space station sprite that were never used. The space station file is notable for being the largest sprite found here (194 KB). The other unused sprites are gold and green gems, an older smoke sprite, an F16 plane rotating in multiple directions and an enemy plane (X29) which did not have enemy data implemented for it. There is one FLI animation from October 1995, showing a plane appearing from below the ground.

The game's files include few tools for editing powerup progression, enemy data and weapon data, tools that convert older versions of enemy and weapon data into new ones, a program that generates sine, cosine and raycast data, as well as a simple level editor. The oldest bit of code is an utility module for the other tools, from April 1995.

There are no sounds in the game.

Discord:
https://discord.gg/AdJzafd