Retro Arcade Mini: SiniStar
1Sinistar is a 1983 multidirectional shooter arcade game developed and manufactured by Williams Electronics. It was created by Sam Dicker, Jack Haeger, Noah Falstein, RJ Mical, Python Anghelo, and Richard Witt. Players control a spacecraft pilot who battles the eponymous Sinistar. In addition to the game's use of digitized speech for its antagonist, Sinistar is known for its high difficulty level.
The player pilots a lone spacecraft, mining drifting planetoids and catching the crystals which are released. Shooting a planetoid too rapidly destroys it without releasing any crystals. Each collected crystal turns into a "Sinibomb", which is needed to defeat the game boss, Sinistar, an animated spacecraft with a demonic skull face.
Sinistar does not exist at the start of the game, but is constructed by enemy worker ships. Enemy worker ships collect crystals which they use to construct the Sinistar. Enemy warrior ships can directly attack the player's ship, shoot planetoids to mine crystals, and guard the Sinistar while it is being built. It takes 20 crystals to create the 20 pieces of a completely built Sinistar.
Once the Sinistar is constructed, a digitized voice makes threatening pronouncements while chasing the player's ship: "Beware, I live!", "I hunger, coward!", "I am Sinistar!", "Run! Run! Run!", "Beware, coward!", "I hunger!", "Run, coward!", and a loud roar. The Sinistar has no weapons, but it destroys the player's ship on contact. A total of 13 Sinibombs are required to destroy Sinistar. Each Sinibomb automatically targets the Sinistar when fired, but can be intercepted by Workers, Warriors, and planetoids.
The player warps to a new zone each time Sinistar is defeated. The unnamed first zone is followed by the Worker Zone, Warrior Zone, Planetoid Zone, and Void Zone, then it cycles back to the Worker Zone. Each zone emphasizes a particular game feature, with the Void Zone having fewer planetoids. In all but the first zone, a completed but damaged Sinistar can be repaired by enemy Workers, extending its lifespan if the player is unable to kill it quickly.
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