Shield Shifter is a homebrew Atari 2600 game developed by John Reder / Tactical Neuronics. It was given a limited cartridge release by Good Deal Games. Shield Shifter was later included on the Atari Flashback series of plug-and-play consoles, starting with the Atari Flashback 5 in 2014, and most recently on the Atari Flashback X Deluxe in 2019. The player controls a turret at the bottom of the screen, firing up at three shield layers that loop horizontally. The goal is to create an opening in the third layer and hit the insectoid hiding behind it, which continuously fires at the player.
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This is a decently fun one. I enjoyed it more than Strip-Off, which was the other Tactical Neuronics homebrew on the Atari Flashback.
It has the same shoot-up style layout as Space Invaders (whatever that genre is called). However it's actually more similar to Yar's Revenge; there's only one enemy instead of a horde, and it's shooting back at you both with regular lasers and with timed bombs. Also like Yar, the enemy is protected by a moving shield that you have to chip away at to create an opening. The movement of the shield and the unpredictable movements of the enemy lead to some frantic and dynamic gameplay.
On top of that, there's a score meter that fills up not only when you hit the enemy (ending the level and moving on to the next one), but also when you break a block of the shield. So you're actually incentivized to leave the enemy alive while you destroy the entire shield for maximum points, and it becomes increasingly difficult both to avoid being shot and to avoid shooting the enemy.
All-in-all a very tightly packed and neatly designed game. The most impressive part to me is that it achieves everything without any lag or screen flickering. A testament both to the developer's skill and to having 30+ years of hindsight on a console's lifespan.
It has the same shoot-up style layout as Space Invaders (whatever that genre is called). However it's actually more similar to Yar's Revenge; there's only one enemy instead of a horde, and it's shooting back at you both with regular lasers and with timed bombs. Also like Yar, the enemy is protected by a moving shield that you have to chip away at to create an opening. The movement of the shield and the unpredictable movements of the enemy lead to some frantic and dynamic gameplay.
On top of that, there's a score meter that fills up not only when you hit the enemy (ending the level and moving on to the next one), but also when you break a block of the shield. So you're actually incentivized to leave the enemy alive while you destroy the entire shield for maximum points, and it becomes increasingly difficult both to avoid being shot and to avoid shooting the enemy.
All-in-all a very tightly packed and neatly designed game. The most impressive part to me is that it achieves everything without any lag or screen flickering. A testament both to the developer's skill and to having 30+ years of hindsight on a console's lifespan.