Star Collector

Star Collector is a 100% browser-based retro top-down space shooter with challenging boss battles. Fly your ship, sweep up stars, dodge waves of enemies, and blast the bosses that come hunting for you — right in your browser, no install needed. Easy to pick up, tough to put down.

🚧 Work in progress  

This game is in active development, with new features landing every week. Check back often to see what's new!

 Features 

• Chase the stars. Sweep up stars to raise your score — and to summon the boss. From the fourth boss onward, stars also rain down from the top, so catch them mid-fall to keep your meter climbing.
• Seven boss battles. Each one fights differently and hits harder than the last — a downward fan of shots, a full ring of bullets radiating outward, an oval sweep pouring a curtain of fire straight down, and aimed barrages that track you across the screen. It all builds to Eclipse: a three-form boss that flares red past half health, speeds up, and fires faster and meaner than anything before it.
• Enemies with attitude. Six enemy types rotate through your run — standard drones, zig-zaggers, side-streaking meteors and pure speed demons, plus Frost, a homing hunter that comes in pairs and takes two hits to drop, and Venom, the first enemy that shoots back.
• Power-ups. Grab a Shield, Rapid Fire, Double Shot, Twin Ship, or a Medkit for an instant extra life.
• Stay alive. A hearts system with up to eight lives — start with four, and every boss you take down leaves you a little tougher for the next wave.
• Play it your way. Keyboard, mouse, or a game controller — pick your steering right in the menu, and Star Collector remembers your choice the next time you drop in.
• Chase the highscore. Your best run is saved locally, and the menu keeps a recap of your last flight — score, bosses and stars — so there's always a number to beat.
• Full arcade feel. Scrolling starfield, screen shake, sound effects and music, an engines-hot countdown before every launch — with pause and fullscreen built in.

How to Play

Collect stars to summon each boss — then survive its attacks and pile up your score.

• Move: W A S D or Arrow keys, the mouse (your ship flies toward the pointer), or a controller stick
• Shoot: hold Space, the left mouse button, or A / RT on the controller
• Pause: P  ·  Back to menu: Q (while paused)
• Fullscreen: F

Choose your control scheme in the menu — your pick is saved for next time.

Changelog

Want the full story behind each feature? Check out the devlog for the blow-by-blow on every update, from the earliest builds up to the latest version.

About this project

The graphics and some of the sounds are from Kenney.nl—thank you very much for that. All the text and many of the sounds, as well as the ideas behind them, are mine. Two Vocal-Sounds are by Mowfax. This Boss music was created by a talented artist. My thanks go to Dorian from Germany. I've used AI as support — for debugging code and working through the more complex features. My goal with Star Collector is to learn those harder features hands-on and share the results with you, one update at a time.

Feedback & updates

Star Collector grows every couple of days. If you enjoy it — or spot a bug, or have an idea — leave a comment below, and hit Follow to catch each new version the moment it drops. Thanks for playing!