In bullet hell mining game Astro Prospector the real enemy is sleep

I’m writing up Astro Prospector for a couple of reasons: firstly, it reminds me of two childhood favourites, Atari’s Asteroids and the less-known Crystal Quest for the Macintosh. And secondly, there’s something appealingly perverse about a bullet hell of all gametypes that is always simulating the player nodding off at the keyboard.

It’s an “incremental” single-screen shmup and office burnout spoof in which you control a spaceship with the mouse, auto-mining asteroids for giant coffee beans, while avoiding or destroying the forces of the villainous SpaceCorp.

The length of each round depends on your pilot’s starting caffeine intake: after a few seconds, their eyelids will droop shut and obscure the view. But you can grind your beans between missions to unlock buffs that empower your ship and prolong your wakefulness. One of the unlocks lets you fly through hoops that generate Flow, the productivity guru’s favourite tipple.

The first SpaceCorp enemies consist of lethargic fidget-spinners – easily flummoxed by orbiting slowly around them. Later enemies deliver the expected screenfuls of projectiles, obliging you to follow very particular paths across the screen while continuing to excavate the swirling spacerocks.

As frenetic as the battles get, though, it seems you’ll always have to worry about your pilot falling asleep. To sleep: perchance to dream of upgrade screens. And then, back to the gauzy brown starfields for a top-up. Such madness. So sadness. Nice pixel HUD and ship designs, though. Find the demo on Steam.