Complete guide

This guide is intended as a complete guide for the game, and I will complete it as I play the game.

Presentation

I wrote this guide as I wanted to make notes about the game, and I thought it would be better to share them. I have been meaning, ever since, to continue it; but so far, I haven't been able to, due to a lack of time.

Gameplay

The core gameplay of this game is very basic, it takes the idea from the space invaders one. You control a ship which can only move horizontally, and you have to shoot the invaders, which are coming from the top of the screen. The goal of the game is to destroy these invaders before they reach you.

Titan Attacks has several gameplay improvements over the original idea:

Bonus

The bonus is merely the multiplier used by the game to calculate how your score is increased for each of your actions. With a bonus of 1 (nothing displayed), you get normal score for each of your actions, wheras a bonus of 9 (maximum bonus) gets you nine times the same score. The bonus is reset then you are hit. It's interesting only if you want a good score.

Score

This value is of little use, excepted if you really seek to hit the top of the leaderboards.

Cash

This one is rather self-explanatory. You get cash for several various actions, killing enemies, catching droping aliens (the parachute ones, not the ships), and so on. Simply put, the game is about getting as most cash as possible (so you can get permanent powerups, making the game easier).

Shields

Shields prevent you to die as soon as something hits you. Instead, they are removed one by one, until you have no shields. At this point, any collision is fatal. My recommendation is to NOT buy them unless needed (in high levels).

Smartbombs

Smartbombs are items that kill/damage all the enemies on the screen. Their maximum storable quantity is 3 and they are quite expensive. Do not spend your money in that unless you have everything maxxed out, or for the achievement.

Parachuting aliens

Sometimes, when you shoot them down, the ships drop instead of exploding on the spot. When this happens, both the ship and an escaping alien will drop down. The alien can be caught, shot, or ignored. If captured, they will grant you a $100 bonus. If shot, they will not. If ignored, they will cost you a $100 penalty, so in case you can't catch them, be sure to shoot them. The dropping ships can be shot for extra score.

Bonus ships

Once in a while, you might notice some ships passing at the top of your screen. Shoot them for extra bonuses, or temporary (rarely permanent) powerups.

They spawn when you have killed a specific (different for each level) amount of enemies. So it's best to start removing the enemies that will prevent you from hitting these "passing ships" right from the start. Also, since you chose when they appear, try to place them in a "gap".

Enemies speed

All enemies have a given speed, which is increased when only four enemies remain on the screen. For the last one, the speed is increased even more. So it is advised to keep the static (or non-moving) ennemies for the end, excepted if they are too much of an annoyance, like the ones who drop bombs.

Challenge stages

Every seven level, when you have destroyed all the ennemies in the wave, you will be brought to a bonus level. These levels are about hitting EVERY SINGLE SHIP. You get a good bonus for a 100% accuracy (rarely even a permanent powerup, like some increase of one of your characteristics), and a small bonus (shield, cash, etc.)for between 75 and 99% accuracy. So try to not miss them ;)

Worlds

A world consist of a series of waves, and at the end of it, your best performance is saved. Once saved, you can replay from that point every time you want to start from there.

General strategy

Since the ship movement is not restricted (it can move as fast as you move the controller), the difficulty comes from the shots frequency. At start, it is very low, and the upgrade is quite expensive. Needless to say, this is the first upgrade you should get.

Now, as you progress through the game, the enemies will get faster, and tougher. While you cannot do anything about it directly, I recommend you to stick with the following weapon upgrades levels in order to keep up:

Wave (nr of enemies: gains)	Kills before bonus ship shows up	Shot power level¹	Shot frequency level²
1 (12x$10: $120)	11	0	0
2 (18x$10: $180)	9	1	0
3 (21x$10: $210)	3, 14	2	0
4 (22x$10): $220	4	3	0
5	?	3	0
6	?	3	0
7 (challenge stage)	?	3	1
8	?	4	1

1. "Gun power"
   
2. "Xtra bullets"

Notes:

• The cash gain for a level has been calculated with ALL enemies shot. It does not take into account the fallen enemies that had crashed on the floor, nor the bonuses you might get.

Also, I made a table of the enemies, so you know what to expect and when.

Enemy	present in waves	HP	Cash given
	1-?	1	$10
Missing image	3-?	2
	3-?	3
	4	3
	4	3
	4	3

Tips

Most of those tips are courtesy of Zeb. Thanks!

• In early levels, try not to buy anything, and only purchase two "extra weapon" upgrades.
  
• As each purchase increases the prices in the shop, spend wisely.
  
• Most aliens shift side to side, and each time they hit the side of the screen, they drop down a line. So, concentrate on taking out those on both ends (left and right), so they drop slower (as they would take more time to reach the side of the screen then).
  
• Shooting aliens on the sides of the screen is easier, since the bounce gives you twice the opportunities (they are in the same spot twice instead of once).

[candace]

you forgot useing controller to shoot at extremely fast rates with addon 1 and buying recharge until its 2/3

[Zeb]

OK I'm losing the will to live now. I don't need to verify anything. IT'S TOO BLOODY HARD!!!

[7heo]

Nah I was mostly saying you can do it, if you want to verify that it does that for you too. :P

Either way, I would not advise doing it while trying to beat the game, it makes it highly unplayable.

[Zeb]

I have no need to! My PC is more than capable of playing it full screen full HD max frame rate. It's too damned hard!!!

[7heo]

Try alt-tabbing or unplugging-replugging your USB keyboard/mouse... Both those things made it drop to single-digit FPS for me.

[Zeb]

My machine is more than capable of playing it - I experience zero slow down. Just the more I play it the more I don't like it because it's just too hard.

[7heo]

So I played it a little; and I find it okay (It can be hard, true, but it's manageable on a recent machine)... that is, until it suddenly starts cramming all the effects it has in one frame and permanently drops to 4-5 FPS. For the record, I play on a i7 (6th gen, so it should perfectly a game of this caliber) with a 1080 and 16GB of DDR4...

[Zeb]

Not sure how long I'm going to be lasting with this game, I love it but it's just too hard.

[7heo]

I will have to play the game again in order to make sense of that table. I think the upgrades I listed in the table aren't how many you should get, but at what level you should be. I'll reinstall the game and try it out, tho.

[Zeb]

Under "General Strategy" there's a table with numbers - it's not very clear. Where you list "I recommend you to get updates for your weapon power as follow:"

Add them - that's what I added them for :)