Tank Force/Gameplay

Controls

 * Joystick - Moves tank
 * Button - Shoots.

Players
These are the tanks that the first and second players control. Player 1 controls the red tank, and player 2 controls the blue tank simultaneously. Depending on powerups they've collected, they can have one or two of their own shots on the screen at one time, and may not fire again until the shot(s) hits an enemy or collides with a wall. Unless a force field is surrounding the tanks or they've just spawned, preventing them from taking damage, they can be destroyed by one enemy bullet. If one player shoots another, it will kick the other player back to a distance of 1 small tile.

Basic Tank
Points: 400

This greenish tank is the first enemy you encounter. Their bullets travel at the same speed as yours (with no power-ups applied.) It takes one shot to destroy them.

Fast Tank
Points: 600

This tank acts like a basic tank, but is significantly faster. They can move at a substantially faster rate than your tank can travel. Their bullets, however, travel at normal speed. It takes one shot to destroy them. Often they pose a considerable threat to your headquarters.

Armor Tank
Points:1000

This tank moves a bit slower than a normal tank and has the same firepower. However, it takes three hits to destroy them. They start out bluish-gray and turn redder when hit. Third shot destroys them. Unlike other enemies with multiple hitpoints, they slowly regenerate their hits when not hit for some time.

Flame Tank
Points:1500

This is the slowest enemy tank. However, it takes 5 shots to destroy it. Their shots destroys terrain with double firepower and it takes 2 shots to neutralize their projectile.

Jeep
Points:800

This is the fastest enemy. Unlike other enemies, it doesn't get stuck in the wall and when it hits a boundary of any sorts, it changes direction to continue moving. Jeeps lay dynamites which explode and damage terrain or destroy players on or 1 small tile near them. Jeeps are the generally the lowest threat amongst all the enemies, but can be annoying due to their constant movement, high speed and explosives which can slightly hinder your movement.

Light Missile Launcher
Points:1200

Light missile launchers are fairly slow and warn player every time they're about to fire, making them also vulnerable. However, they shoot 4 fast bullets at a time which are very hard to neutralize and can make a quick game over when having a clear shot to even fully reinforced headquarters. Although it doesn't seem so, all 4 bullets fired by light missile launcher, have the same line of fire.

Heavy Missile Launcher
Points:2000

Unlike other regular enemies and player tanks, which take a space of 2X2 small tiles, these take 4X4 small tiles. They stop when shooting but don't warn players prior to that, unlike light missile launchers. Heavy missile launchers shoot 3 missiles next to each other. Although most of them generally can't directly attack the headquarters, they can chip terrain away very quickly, opening up passages to smaller enemies, making them dangerous supporting vehicles. Their weakness is the fact that they can only shoot downwards, making them vulnerable from other locations. It takes 8 hits to destroy them. They only show up in 4 rounds in the entire game but often are high priority to destroy, even if that means wandering away from your base.

Bosses
Every 4th stage is a boss stage. All bosses and their turrets move randomly left and right and take many hits to destroy. When bosses and their components are destroyed, the maximum amount of regular enemies onscreen typically increases.

Light Armoured Wagon
Points: 3000

First encountered boss vehicle which has 1 turret in the center of it. These shoot projectiles similar to standard bullets, although these are sometimes not possible to destroy from below and travel at much faster speed. To destroy them, try to have protective cover both in left and right of you and move away as the center of the vehicle moves right above you.

Heavy Armoured Wagon
Points: 5000

Much more dangerous than light armoured wagon. Has 2 turrets, 1 near the each end of the wagon.It's much harder to shoot them in safe range, especially when tank has 2 or more firepower upgrades since it's much safer to fire at it before moves directly above you.

AK-1
Points:
 * 3000 (1st turret),
 * 5000 (2nd turret),
 * 10 000 (3rd turret)


 * 18 000 (total)

A large vehicle with 3 turrets which must be destroyed to destroy the vehicle. Each of these turrets fire 2 high-speed bullets when they're pointed downwards so their attack pattern is somewhat predictable. When all the regular enemies are gone, it's advised to move as upwards as possible to minimize the time between shots and move away when turrets are starting to point downward. However, this method is risky and those on safe side should stay on lower portions of the screen.

AK-2
Points:
 * 3000 (1st turret)
 * 5000 (2nd turret)
 * 8000 (3rd turret)
 * 10 000 (4th turret)


 * 26 000 (total)

Second incarnation of AK vehicle is much more dangerous than the first one. It has 4 turrets which are more closely packed together than in AK-1. In addition, these turrets shoot projectiles similar to those which are shot by flame tank which means they take 2 shots to destroy. In addition, these are much faster. Fighting strategy is similar to AK-1, although harder to execute.

Heavy Turret
Points:
 * 10 000 (1st turret)
 * 15 000 (2nd turret)
 * 20 000 (3rd turret)
 * 30 000 (4th turret)


 * 75 000 (total)

As a part of the final boss, these are extremely dangerous, shooting 3 missiles in a row so it's best to dodge these whenever possible. When turret's hitpoints lower, it starts to move faster. With each destroyed turret, the remaining ones start to move faster. The last remaining turret moves at great speed and is hard to hit.

Power-Ups
Often, when enemy is destroyed, a power up will appear semi-randomly on the screen when You must touch them to collect them and activate their effects.

Difficulty
There are 4 difficulty settings the arcade machine may be set - Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard. Difficulty affects the moving speed for the enemies and their projectiles. In very hard difficulty, enemies move over twice as fast as in easy mode.