Gyruss/Gameplay

Controls

 * Joystick: Use the joystick to direct which portion of the screen you wish the ship to travel to and occupy. If you pull the joystick down, the ship will travel around the outer edge of the screen until it reaches the bottom and stay there.  If you push the joystick to the left, the ship will take the quickest path around the outer edge to the left side of the screen.  Due to the unusual nature of the game, however, the joystick on the real arcade hardware did not return to the center; it stays perpetually pointed in some direction.
 * Fire: Press the fire button to shoot towards the center of the screen. Ordinarily, you can only fire three single shots on the screen at one time.  However, after your ship receives a weapons upgrade, your firepower doubles, and you can fire three double shots on the screen.
 * 1 or 2 Players: Press either button to begin a one or two player game.

Player
You control the spacecraft shown to the left throughout the game. Your one and only goal is to warp from one planet of the solar system to the next in the hopes of making at back home to Earth in time to stop an alien invasion. But the aliens are on to you, and they will do whatever they can to stop you from reaching your destination and warning everyone about their arrival.

You have no time to stop, so you are constantly on a trajectory towards the next warp to home. As such, you cannot veer off-course, but you can circle around the vector that leads to your next destination point. As such, you can fly around in a circle around the center of the screen. Your ship is fast, but even it has limitations. It's important to get to know just how quickly your craft can maneuver around the outside of the screen.

Your craft is equipped with guns. You have a single gun which is always available and fires a single shot into the center of the screen. However, if you destroy the orb situated between two space stations, you unlock enough energy to activate your twin guns, which increases your firepower by firing a double shot. You will keep the twin guns until your ship is ever destroyed.

You ship is vulnerable to enemy fire and collisions. Essentially, there is nothing safe to touch except for the energy released by the weapons orb. If you are shot, or collide with another object, you will lose one life. Any roaming enemy craft will settle into place in the formation at the center of the screen, and you will resume play at the bottom of the screen. If you lose all of your lives, the game is over. Extra lives can be awarded by achieving certain scores. By default, you earn your first extra life at 30,000 points, and you earn additional extra lived every 60,000 points thereafter. However, this setting can be changed by arcade operators.