A downloadable game

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Dogstar is an action packed Retro-Arcade gravity/vertical shoot and rescue mission with loads of Mass Destruction! Play 1P Campaign, 2P Co-Op Campaign, or 2P Trophy Deathmatch in time-limited levels, battle scaling/evolving AI difficulty, Multiple skill and mission levels, Secure online high scores, and more.

how to play

The Aim in Dogstar is simple. Stay alive, kill the enemy ships to release your comrades,  rescue your comrades, and escape the level before time runs out.  There are many ways to gain 1-UPs, bonuses, chain kills, insta-craft new powerups, and heaps more.  The main powerup in Dogstar is a smart weapon, that multiplies the rewards depending on the target destroyed.

Try to line up enemies and take out lines of them with a single powered up shot for huge bonuses. Two of the particularly relentless enemies: Otto, and The Miner, can only be destroyed while powered up, but then they are also turned into huge mass  destruction weapons.

The most important thing when learning to play Dogstar is to get the hang of flying your ship around, and controlling the inertia/gravity. The 2nd most important thing is attack, attack, attack! Dogstar rewards aggressive play, if you sit still in Dogstar too long, you will lose lives quickly.

To win a level: Rescue 15x Comrades in a level to open the Stargate.  Fly straight into the Stargate to end the level, or you can fly around being a badass and racking up points and powering up pulling off huge kills and classy combos and exit when you choose. But you must complete the objective within the timer and escape.

about the demo

In this free demo version, players can try out the following levels from Dogstar, at two selectable skill levels - Regular, and Brutal.

1P - Mars 1 - 
Full level, Saucers, Motherships, Phobos battle
1P - Jupiter challenging stage  Clear formation waves for Perfect bonuses
2P - Jupiter 2 - Co-Op reduced-time level Batbots, BatBosses, Moons

Achievemements and Online High Scores are turned off in the Demo.

FUNKY CHIPTUNES

The soundtrack to Dogstar is by ROCCOW, the master of chiptunes and DJ from the Netherlands, who composes music using Gameboy. Each level has a unique chiptune.

the big box

The full retail version of Dogstar has the following features:

Online High Scores:

Compete against Dogstar players from the world over and post your best scores. Dogstar uses a secure OAuth2 back end, to ensure the only scores you should see online are legitimately earned.

Single Player:

Jupiter levels: 1, 2, Challenging stage
Mars levels: 1,2, Challenging stage
Earth levels: 1,2

Venus level: The final showdown - A unique vertical level where you Battle masses of Alien Hordes, 2x Boss Battles, Comet storms, and try to Destroy Venus, all before time runs out.

Marathonable single player campaign

if you are good enough to defeat the final level Venus, you are jumped back to the  starting level Jupiter at Veteran settings,  all enemy AI is ramped up, and things will be much tougher. How long can you last, and how high will you get on the world leaderboards?

Multiplayer:

2P CO-OP: (longer levels, more enemies, weapons cannot harm each other)

Jupiter: 1, 2, Dual Player Challenging stage
Mars: 1,2, Dual Player Challenging stage
Earth: 1,2

Venus level: The final showdown - take on all enemy types at once, and try to destroy the Enemy Home Base of Venus before time runs out!

Shared lives:

On the map screen in 2P Co-Op,  either player can donate any amount of their lives to the other player. This way, you can keep the other player in the game longer, or bring a dead player back into the game.

Marathonable multiplayer campaign

if you are good enough to defeat the final level Venus, you are jumped back to the starting level Jupiter at Veteran settings,  all enemy AI is ramped up, and things will be much tougher. 

2P DEATHMATCH (longer levels, all weapons are hot)

In Deathmatch, choose the level you want to play from any of the planets, and the game is a head to head battle where you can win by either:

1/ Destroying your opponent the most amount of times within the time limit, or
2/ Rescue 15 Comrades and escape before your opponent

2Dog Games
StatusReleased
Publisher
Release date Jan 04, 2018
Author2Dog Games
GenreAction, Shooter
Tags8-Bit, Arcade, Local Co-Op, Multiplayer, Retro, retro-arcade, Singleplayer, Space, Versus
Average sessionA few minutes
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard, Xbox controller, Gamepad (any), Joystick
MultiplayerLocal multiplayer
Player count1 - 2
LinksSteam, Blog

Download

Download
Dogstar_Demo.zip 114 MB

Install instructions

Greetings, Starfighter! And thanks for downloading the Dogstar Demo.

The zip file you are downloading also contains a manual for the full game. There is much under the surface in Dogstar, so it's worth having a quick read.

Once installed, and you are on the title screen,  press the Y button on your Xbox 360 compatible controller to bring up the help menu. Here you can find the control mappings for your ship/s. Please look at these before playing Dogstar.  If you don't have an Xbox 360 compatible controller, you can use also use keyboard to play 1 or 2 players. Or, download the free Xbox360 controller app http://www.x360ce.com/ to make any controller X360 compatible.

The full game is available on Steam - Steam achievements are part of the fun of Dogstar.  There is a full version planned for Itch that will include achievements via an alternate achievements system.

Development log