At Alphie’s Galactic Bar and Grill humans are not welcome. According to house
rules those who enter has to compete in an electronic game called Grid Wars.
If the player wins, the reward is to buy drinks to everyone in the bar and if
he loses he’s thrown out. There are fifteen levels in total each against one
of the bar’s customers.

Grid Wars is a fixed screen shoot ’em up that is viewed from a slightly
tilted perspective. The player’s laser cannon, which can be moved left and
right, is located beneath the grid and on the other side is the opponent.
There are two types of enemies that move around the grid: the grid nasties and
the grid walkers. The objective is to prevent the grid walkers from reaching
the player’s end while at the same time avoiding crashing into the grid
nasties. In front of the player are shields that hinder the progress of the
grid walkers but are destroyed when hit by the grid nasties.

Three different weapons can be used by the player. The main weapon is the
laser cannon which works differently from other shoot ’em up in that
projectiles are shot in a trajectory and not in a straight line. The two other
weapons are torpedos which destroys all enemies in a grid row and vaporizers
that destroy all grid nasties on the screen. These weapons are only available
in a limited supply.

To complete a level the player has to eradicate all the grid nasties. The game
ends when a grid walker reaches the player’s end of the grid or when all the
three of the player’s laser cannons are destroyed.

Grid Wars