Moon Shuttle is a 1981 arcade shoot ’em up developed by Nichibutsu and licensed to Taito America for release in the US. The ship stays fixed on the left side of the horizontally scrolling screen, alternating between two kinds of stages: dodging and blasting through fields of meteors to reach the goal, then fighting off waves of enemy ships with wave-motion cannon fire. It was also one of the first arcade games to let a mid-game coin insert add extra lives on the fly.
How to Play
The ship moves on a three-way joystick, up, down, or right, rather than a full 8-way stick, and pushing right accelerates the ship through meteor stages. In the browser this maps to the Up, Down, and Right arrow keys, with Z firing the cannon. Insert a virtual coin with Shift and press Enter to start.
Tips
- Meteors are worth points by size: 50 for large, 30 for medium, 20 for small. Shoot the bigger ones when you have a clear line rather than only dodging.
- Since the ship always drifts forward, holding right through a meteor field gets you to the enemy stage faster but leaves less time to react, hold back a little when the field gets dense.
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