Sinistar/Walkthrough

The goal of the game

Defeat the Sinistar before it defeats you

Your goal in Sinistar is simple: destroy the Sinistar before it destroys you. The Sinistar is a large silver and red face with devil-like horns that will chase down your ship and—literally—eat it. It is constructed one piece at a time by small red bugs called Workers. Workers assemble the Sinistar one piece at a time from the crystals that they find floating in space.

Crystals don't start out floating in space; originally, they are buried deep with the Planetoids drifting through space around you. They can be broken loose (or mined) by firing into the Planetoids. Workers can't mine crystals themselves, so they wait for you to do it and then try to steal the crystals before you can get to them. You'll want to prevent the Workers from stealing crystals for two reasons:

1. to prevent them from building the Sinistar; and
2. because the crystals you collect are converted to Sinibombs which can be used to destroy the Sinistar later.

The only dangers to your ship in Sinistar are the Warriors and Sinistar itself. The Warriors will try to shoot you while you're mining crystals, but they can be quickly destroyed with the fire button. The Sinistar, on the other hand, can only be destroyed by a direct hit from a Sinibomb on every piece of it. This is the main goal of the game.

Controls and the screen

Watch the message are for important updates

Sinistar's controls are very simple and very sensitive. A 49-directions (7 × 7) joystick controls your velocity and acceleration, and two buttons are used to control firing and Sinibombs. (The buttons are provided on both sides of the joystick, for right- and left-handed players.) The fire button is used to destroy the Sinistar. Continuous firing is available if you hold the button down, but you can fire faster manually if you're willing to work at it. Because of its sensitivity, small movements of the joystick will give you the best control of your ship. if you move too quickly or abruptly, you'll just be fighting against your own momentum. This is particularly important when mining the Planetoids, because the Workers will steal your crystals if you can't pick them up right away.

Sinistar is a scrolling background game. This means that the background moves (scrolls) past your ship as you fly, and the ship itself stays in the center of the screen. The main screen shows what is happening nearby, and a radar scanner at the top of the screen shows what is happening in a much larger area of the universe. Planetoids, Workers, Warriors, and the Sinistar all show up on the radar, but most players only use it for locating the Sinistar. Even the radar scanner doesn't show the entire universe—the entire universe is almost 10 minutes' flying time across, and it wraps around at the edges like Asteroids.

There are many things to keep track of in Sinistar. To help you with this, the message area (just below your score in the upper left corner) flashes warnings and news of important developments. A beeping sound will tell you when a new message appears. Just above your score, two rows of small circles keep track of how many Sinibombs (crystals) you have collected.

Mining crystals

Collect the crystals you mined before the Workers do

To mine crystals, you must shoot the Planetoids. Each shot imparts a certain amount of energy to the Planetoid, making it shake vigorously. Once a Planetoid has absorbed enough energy from you shots, it will begin emitting crystals and then continue emitting crystals as long as you keep the total energy of the Planetoid above a certain threshold. There is no limit to the number of crystals that can be mined from a single Planetoid, but the Planetoid can be accidentally destroyed if you fire into it too rapidly; it will simply absorb too much energy and shake itself apart. Five points are awarded for destroying a Planetoid, but it's usually better to save them and mine the crystals.

As mentioned previously, the Workers will try to steal the crystals as you mine them. To prevent this, you can either shoot the Workers for 150 points apiece or simply push them out of the way (your ship is not affected by running into them). Even if a Worker manages to steal a crystal, you can still recover it; just shoot the Worker when it is flying away with the crystal, and the crystal will be left behind after it is destroyed. It will still be moving with the Worker's original velocity, however, so it may not be worth the trouble of chasing it down. If you do recover it, you'll receive 200 points, but following a single crystal all around the universe—when you could be mining many more—is definitely a rookie maneuver.

The nature of the enemy

Workers strive to collect crystals and build Sinistar

In most video games, each type of opponent has a predictable characteristic behavior. In Defender, for example, Landers will always look for humanoids to pick up, and Mutants will always hunt your ship. But in Sinistar, the Workers and Warriors have many different tasks to perform: mining crystals, building Sinistar, guarding Sinistar, attacking your ship, etc. These tasks are divided up among the available Workers and Warriors according to a complex allocation scheme whereby some opponents are always working on each task, but certain tasks (like attacking your ship) have a higher priority. As a result of this, you can never predict the behavior of an individual Worker or Warrior, because he may be reassigned to a new "job" at any time. You can only be sure that, like neurons, ants, and (supposedly) humans, their collective behavior will be consistent with their collective goals.

Warriors are blue and octagonal, with a white gun turret in the center. Although they harmlessly bounce off your ship in a collision (like Workers), they can shoot at you and have fairly good aim. They will fire more and more as the game progresses, so shoot them as soon as possible when they come on the screen—they don't start firing for up to one second, and you can often eliminate them before they get a shot off. Warriors are worth 500 points.

Warriors are on the hunt to destroy you

The Workers' main objective is to build the Sinistar, and the Warriors' main objective is to destroy your ship. But, as explained above, an individual Worker or Warrior can be assigned to one of many tasks to help achieve these goals. Workers will either:

1. hang around your ship and wait for you to mine crystals;
2. hang around Warriors that are mining crystals (yes, Warriors can shoot Planetoids and mine crystals); or
3. pursue free crystals.

Once a Worker has gathered a crystal, its highest priority then becomes transporting the crystals back to the Sinistar. Warriors also have three main jobs to do:

1. mine crystals;
2. guard the Sinistar; and
3. attack the player (top priority).

The Sinistar

Once Sinistar arrives, all you can do is flee and bomb

The Sinistar is built one piece at a time by the Workers. Each time a piece is added to it, you will hear a clanking sound. After 20 pieces have been assembled, the Sinistar is complete and roars "Beware — I live!" That's your final warning to stock up on Sinibombs — the next time the Sinistar speaks, he will attack. He can fly much faster than your ship, so it won't do any good to turn and run.

Once you have collected enough crystals to destroy Sinistar (i.e. you have more Sinibombs than the Sinistar has pieces) move towards it and get ready to release some of your bombs. When you hit the Sinibomb button, a bomb will drop from your ship and head straight for the Sinistar. (When you don't know where he is, following a bomb is a good way to find him.) If the Sinistar is off the scanner, or the bomb hits a Planetoid, Worker, or Warrior, a "Sinibomb Intercepted" message will appear in the message area, letting you know that the Sinibomb never reached its destination. Workers and Warriors try to throw themselves into the path of a Sinibomb, and Warriors even shoot at the Sinibombs, so long shots are often intercepted.

If Sinistar gets too close, you're finished

A hit on the Sinistar destroys one section and is worth 500 points. There are 13 section in a while Sinistar (12 pieces and the face), so it takes 13 Sinibombs to destroys it. When the Sinistar is being built, however, it is assembled from 20 pieces; after it is complete, the seven pieces that make up the face combine into one section. The face section will always be the last one to be destroyed, and is worth 15,000 points. If you run out of bombs before finishing off the Sinistar, the Workers will rebuild it while you're collecting crystals (The one exception to this is the first wave, where the Sinistar is only built once.)

The nature of zones

Understand the nature of the zone around you

After the Sinistar is destroyed your ship is warped to another Zone, where a new Sinistar will be built. (When you first appear in a new Zone, the Sinistar will be straight ahead, about two scanner widths away.) After the first Zone, the Zones repeat in a group of four: Worker Zone, Warrior Zone, Planetoid Zone, and Void Zone. The Worker, Warrior, and Planetoid Zones have extra Workers, Warriors, and Planetoids respectively. The Void Zone has very few Planetoids, and is the hardest of the Zones. With each repeat of the group of four, the characteristic traits of each Zone are exaggerated. For example, the Warrior Zone has even more Warriors the second time around, and the Void Zone has even fewer Planetoids.

One interesting thing about the zones, is that once you have destroyed 127 sinistars, which is approximately at around 7-8 million points, the game ONLY repeats the planetoid zone. If you can get this far, and have extra men, you could potentially play this game as long as you like, since this level is relatively easier than the others.

Strategy

Prepare to do better with your next ship

There are many different ways to play Sinistar. According to Noah Falstein, Sinistar design team leader:

Mining crystals effectively is the key to good playing. Use subtle movement of the joystick; its 49-direction control is most effective that way. Also, you should be very careful of the Warriors' shots—that's what kills most players, and not the Sinistar itself. Here's how we (the Williams designers) play: Start out by mining crystals like mad. The, use a bomb to find the Sinistar (drop a bomb and watch which direction it goes). Go to him and blast away a few pieces for extra points, and the go fill up on bombs before finishing off the Sinistar with a volley of bombs. That way, you can enter the next Zone with plenty of bombs. This is a good trick for getting through the first Worker and Warrior zones. Then, on the Planetoid Zone, you can take a breather because there are so many Planetoids. Bomb the Sinistar for extra points, and save bombs for the Void Zone, which is really tough.

Tricks

255 Lives

On your last man, make sure a warrior fires at you just as Sinistar sucks you in. As the Sinistar sucks you in, you will lose your last man, but when the warrior's bullet hits you, you will have one less than zero ships. This will give you 255 ships! Since you are trying to die twice, you have to let a warrior shoot at you, before you get sucked in, then hope that the shot hits you after you have been sucked in. This is VERY tricky (almost impossible) to do.

Programmers credits

1. Set lives to 1 (This is optional, it merely saves time).
2. Insert one credit.
3. Bump into a Planetoid (rock).
4. Push the fire button seven times.
5. Avoid Planetoids and Workers, don't fire at anything and get shot by a Warrior. If you set lives to 1, the game will now be over. If not, lose all lives in this manner until the game ends.
6. Enter initials.
7. Press the 2 Player button 3 times, then insert one coin and start a new 1 Player game.
8. Don't move or fire, just push the Sinibomb button once. There are now two messages which can be displayed for the credits :
9. Insert 3 coins, then push the Sinibomb button again. The 'crossword' credits should now be displayed.
10. For the Williams Electronics message: Simply end the game by getting shot without hitting a Planetoid or firing, then push the 1 Player button to display the message.