This submission is for Word Zapper, an Atari 2600 game where you zap letters to form words.
You're tasked with spelling 3 words (4, 5, and 6 letters) by shooting letters scrolling by at the top of the screen, whilst also avoiding the hazards in the playfield trying to knock you off course or kill you.
Letters must be shot in the correct order to spell the word. You must also finish the word by shooting the "freebie" (happy alien thing) which you can also use in place of any letter beforehand. However, if you do this, you have to shoot down 5 asteroids to get another freebie to finish the word. This wasn't worth it.
Word seeds are obviously important in a game like this. The first word was DUST, which lets us shoot the entire word in the first pass since the letters are (mostly) alphabetical. The first word is dictated on the start frame, and luckily enough it's right at the beginning after we menu to game 17. Other words are dictated by inputs spammed after the first round ends.
Game 17 has the fastest scroll speed for the letters so it was the obvious choice.
The other two words were SPACE and DIRECT which are both "2 cycles" in that we shoot the freebie the second time we see it. I wasn't able to find a one cycle word for words 4 or 5.
FLASH WARNING NEAR THE END
Samsara: Can't believe this TAS confirmed Dust Space is being announced on the next Direct. I've been waiting for it for YEARS.
Words were zapped efficiently. Accepting!
