Plateshed

About this game

Plateshed is a free space shooter game that runs in your browser with no download. Shoot armour plates off aliens, fly through them to wear a spinning shield, and weigh protection against speed across eight sectors, two bosses and a Daily Sector. Your gun fires by itself, so you only steer.

Plateshed is a side-scrolling space shooter game with one unusual idea: your ship never gets a better weapon, it gets better armour. Aliens fly in from the right wearing armour plates, and those plates soak up your shots. Your gun fires on its own and always does the same damage, so the game is about where you fly. Slide into an alien's lane, strip its plates off, and the plates drift loose as glowing green hexagons.

Fly through a loose plate and it bolts onto your ship as part of a ring that spins around you. The ring holds up to six plates. Each plate blocks the hits that land on it, and each one raises your score multiplier. Each plate also slows the ship and makes the ring a bigger target, and plates wear down as they take hits. Loose plates fade away after about six seconds, so you have to decide quickly. If the ring is already full, a plate you collect repairs a damaged one instead, and a ring that needs no repair simply scores the plate as scrap.

That trade-off is the heart of the game, and you can choose either side of it. Only the small core at the centre of your ship costs you hull, and you have three hull points. A big ring keeps the core safe through long fights with gunners and bosses. A small ring keeps you quick, which matters when bullet sprays fill the screen or when you have to squeeze through a gap in a spine wall. You are free to fly around a plate and leave it, and the ring rebuilds from the next one that sheds.

There are eight hand-made sectors, each lasting roughly 70 to 100 seconds, and a session of three or four of them takes a few minutes. Sector 1, Scrap Belt, is gentle and no alien fires at you. New enemies arrive as you go: Drones and Darters, then Gunners, Bulwarks with their wall of plates, Orbiters whose plates circle the hull, and Weavers that spray spirals of bolts. Spine walls with narrow gaps appear in the later sectors. Sector 4 ends in a fight with the Bastion and sector 8 with the Moult. Both bosses shed their plates in patterns, which gives you a rhythm of refills in the middle of the storm.

Every sector can earn up to three stars, and a clear unlocks the next sector. Once you have cleared sector 2, a Daily Sector opens. It is built from the date, with a modifier that changes how plates behave. Your best scores and stars are saved in your browser. There is no account to make and nothing to install, and it plays with a keyboard, a mouse or a touch screen in landscape.

How to play

1. Press Play and choose Sector 1. Your ship fires forward automatically, so you only need to move.
2. Slide into the lane of an armoured alien. Your shots hit its plates first, and a plate that breaks drifts loose and turns green.
3. Fly through a green plate before it fades to wear it. Up to six plates spin around your ship, and each one blocks hits and raises your score multiplier.
4. Dodge the pink and amber bullets with the small core at the centre of your ship. A hit on a ring plate wears the plate down, while a hit on the core costs one of your three hull points.
5. Decide how much armour to carry. More plates mean more protection and a higher multiplier, fewer plates mean more speed.
6. Destroy the aliens to clear the sector, or defeat the boss in sectors 4 and 8. Check the star goals on the sector intro and the result screen, then press Next sector.

Controls

Tips

• Strip a plate off an alien and fly straight into it. Loose plates fade after about six seconds, and one that drifts close to your ship is pulled in.
• Do not collect every plate by habit. In the sectors with spine walls, a smaller ring is faster and fits through the narrow gaps with room to spare.
• Carry a full ring into the boss fights. The Bastion and the Moult fill the screen with bullets, and the plates they shed let you refill the ring as you go.
• Gunners aim at where you were when they flashed, so move the moment you see the flash. Every attack is shown with a warning before it fires.
• Take Bulwarks plate by plate, and shoot Orbiters through the gaps between their circling plates.
• Aim for the star goals. You need to destroy 70% of the aliens for two stars, and 90% while losing at most one hull for three, so do not skip the easy kills.

Frequently asked questions

What is Plateshed?

It is a free side-scrolling space shooter game for your browser. Your gun fires by itself and never upgrades, and you grow stronger by shooting plates off aliens and wearing them as a spinning shield.

How do the armour plates work, and should I always wear six?

A loose plate you fly through joins the ring around your ship, up to six. Each plate blocks hits and raises your score multiplier, but it also slows you down and makes the ring a bigger target. You can fly around a plate to leave it, so the best number depends on the sector.

How do the stars work?

You get one star for clearing a sector. Destroying at least 70% of the aliens earns two stars, and destroying at least 90% while losing no more than one hull earns three. There are 24 stars in all, and you can replay any unlocked sector to improve its stars.

What is the Daily Sector?

It is a sector built from the date, so the layout changes each day, and it comes with a modifier such as Heavy plates, Light ship, Slow drift or Brittle ring. It unlocks after you clear sector 2. It gives no stars, but your best score is kept for the last seven dates.

What is the Second Ring and do I have to watch ads?

When your hull is gone in a numbered sector, the game may offer a Second Ring. If you watch the ad, you return with two hull points and a full ring of six plates, once per attempt, and that sector's stars are capped at two. It is optional, and you can choose No thanks. Ads appear only at breaks such as the result screen, never during play.

Is my progress saved, and do I need to download anything?

No download or account is needed. Your stars, best scores and unlocked sectors are saved in your browser, and the Settings screen has a Reset progress button that asks you to confirm.

Does Plateshed work on a phone?

Yes, in landscape. Drag anywhere on the screen to steer, and the gun is always on. If you hold the phone upright, the game asks you to rotate your device and pauses until you do.