SplayMaster

Player notes

About this game

SplayMaster is a space-dueling game for one or two players. Eight ships have different flight and weapon characteristics, and three skill levels adjust the challenge. The view pans and zooms around the combatants as you try to destroy the opposing ship.

The keyboard layout follows two sets of joystick equivalents. Player one rotates with S and F, thrusts with D and uses E for hyperdrive. Press 3 for the photon cannon; press and release 2 for a guided missile. Holding both fire keys raises the deflector shield. Player two uses the arrow keys with 9 and 0 for the two fire buttons.

These keys also navigate the title and ship-selection screens. P pauses a fight, while Escape returns from combat to selection; at the title screen Escape quits. The original joystick instructions call downward input thrust and upward input hyperdrive, so do not assume that Up is the accelerator.

The running archive identifies itself as version 1.16. Its bundled readme is labeled 1.10; the basic keyboard start, combat and pause actions have also been checked in the current browser package.