Assault

Assault

Registry name: assault. Parity status in games_covered.md: 🥉.

Description

Side-scrolling shooter: the player moves along the bottom, fires vertically or sideways, and must destroy waves of crabs dropped from a mothership while managing an overheat meter.

Actions

Observations

Reward

Modifications

None registered.

Known issues

  • Enemy sprites — only the first enemy type has proper sprites (enemy_0 / enemy_1 / tiny). Later stage enemy types appear to be simple palette recolors of that same shape rather than distinct ALE artwork.

  • Level / page progression — wave length matches ALE (10 aliens per page; advance when those are cleared). Per-page content is only partly modelled: approximate 4-way color cycle and splitters after page 4 exist, but ALE’s later vertical bobbing, distinct weapon types (missile groups / laser / fireballs), and random-appearance teleports are incomplete or missing.

  • Later-stage movement — early game is fixed-lane horizontal with survivors shuffling down into empty lower lanes and new crabs entering only at the top. ALE later pages add vertical bobbing and short random-appearance teleports; those modes are not implemented.

  • Enemy spawn density — three fixed Y slots (53 / 78 / 103) match early ALE; denser multi-per-row packing on later pages is still incomplete.

  • Starting lives — JAX uses MAX_LIVES = 3; ALE typically starts with 4.

  • Enemy fire timing — ENEMY_FIRE_INTERVAL is approximate; may still diverge from ALE cadence under longer play.

  • Visual / UI leftovers — residual sprite, heat-bar, or HUD mismatches vs ALE may remain. Compare with scripts/gameplay_comparison.py -g assault.