Tips

Every one of these was paid for in exploded ships.

1. Thrust in short bursts

Momentum is the real enemy. The rocks are just where it catches up with you. Tap ↑ in small pulses instead of holding it down, and you will always be one burst away from stopped instead of five.

2. Keep moving, but slowly

A stationary ship is a target; a fast ship is a missile aimed at nothing in particular. The sweet spot is a slow drift, enough motion to slip incoming rocks, little enough that you can still change your mind.

3. Respect the small rocks

They are worth the most (100 points) and they move the fastest. Value and danger arrive together. When a big rock splits, track every fragment before you fire again; the shard you lose sight of is the one that gets you.

4. Saucers first

Rocks drift; saucers aim. The moment one appears it becomes the priority. Take it down before it lines up shots on you, and pocket the 200 or 1,000 points for the trouble. The small saucer is the best payday in the game and behaves like it knows it.

5. Save hyperspace for true emergencies

Shift is a last resort with a built-in failure mode: you can rematerialize somewhere worse than the spot you fled. If there is any flyable gap, fly it. Hyperspace is for when there is not.

6. Demolish methodically, not all at once

Every big rock you shoot adds objects to the screen. Split one rock, sweep up its fragments, then start the next. Popping everything big at once turns a tidy field into a shrapnel storm with you at the center.

7. Go fullscreen

Press F. More screen means you spot rocks earlier and judge your drift better, and the vector look was made to fill the dark. On a slower machine, G switches off the glow and buys the smoothness back.

The mechanics behind all of this are on the Gameplay page; the complete key list is in How to Play.