Quite some time ago, I was watching television with my brother-in-law, and a Mitsubishi commercial came on that featured the old original Asteroids game. Alan (bro-in-law) said that if I was really any kind of game programmer I could make a version of Asteroids for him, so I spent about six hours and whipped out ItchyRoids. It's cheesy, of course. You've got a ship, you've got starfields and nebulae, you've got floating rocks to shoot at. You've also got a few different types of powerups (shields, invincibility, Blaster weapon for rapid fire, Megaton weapon for instant destruction, various score point bonuses). It's not really that fantastic, but it is sort of fun. All weaponry and explosions, and the player's jet trail when accelerating, are particle-based.

The controls are really very simple-- Left and Right arrows to turn your ship, Up arrow to accelerate, Space Bar to shoot. Press 'q' to quit. The game has a few quirks (what can you expect for only 6 hrs of work?) and it really could use a little more variety. Originally, I had intended to add a few AI-controlled enemy types to supplement the ubiquitous floating rocks in higher levels, but never got around to it. Also, I had intended to add more powerups and weapon types, black holes and gravity fields, and other things--but I got bored with the whole thing and didn't do any of that. But you can shoot a bunch of rocks. =D