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Maelstrom

Asteroids, alien fighters, and one very small ship.

▶ Play Maelstrom free, in your browser, nothing to install

Maelstrom (Ambrosia Software, 1993; open-source SDL port 4.0.2) is the classic fast asteroid shooter: rotate, thrust, fire and raise your shields while the belt breaks into smaller and smaller rocks.

This port keeps the original 640x480 arena, sprites, sounds, ship physics, asteroid splitting, Shenobi fighters, prizes, multipliers, bonuses, gravity wells, homing mines, novas, waves and high-score screens.

Single player or 2–3 pilots on one machine, online co-op or deathmatch through this website, keyboard, gamepad and touch controls, account high scores, replays and mod packs. Steam integration is not part of this port.

Screenshots

The original title and menu, with the top pilots table
The original title and menu, with the top pilots table
The first wave: the ship, its shield, asteroids and stars
The first wave: the ship, its shield, asteroids and stars
Two local pilots in co-op
Two local pilots in co-op

Controls

Pilot 1Arrows, Space fire, Shift air brakes
Pilot 2W A S D, F fire, Q air brakes
Pilot 3I J K L, H fire, U air brakes
GamepadLeft stick / d-pad, A fire, B air brakes
TouchOn-screen thrust, shield, rotate, fire and brake buttons
Caps Lock / EscPause (local games); Esc leaves an online room

The original

Maelstrom (1993) by Ambrosia Software; open-source port by Sam Lantinga and contributors; Macintosh; SDL port (C++). This port follows 4.0.2, the same rules, levels, graphics and sounds, running natively in the browser. License: Zlib (code) / CC BY 3.0 (artwork) (Licenses & source). Players: 1-3.

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