Exactly What It Sounds Like: MMOAsteroids

Well, unless you incorrectly read it as "Muh-muh-moo asteroids," in which case it sounds like a mutant cow attempting to pronounce the word "asteroids." In reality, however, mmoAsteroids is - shock of all shocks - timeless classic Asteroids converted into a massively multiplayer blast-'em-up. In practice, it's pretty simple at this point, but it's also pre-Alpha, so that's to be expected. Even so, it's a fun little time-waster at this point, with many bits, bobs, bleeps, and bloops - for instance, UFOs and powerups - already in their proper places. Given time, though, it's apparently set to evolve into something much, much larger.

Developer Paul Firth explained his impressively ambitious plans for mmoAsteroids in an introductory post.

"Imagine being able to go on MMO style quests with your friends, working together to battle through huge shared worlds which resemble those old shoot-em-ups like RType or Gradius, destroying each gun of a massive enemy ship before taking out the power-cell in its centre."

"Or imagine all working together in teams to pilot a large mecha ship (similar but more advanced than the one in the current game) all the way to the opposing teams base, avoiding the automatic gun turrets that they placed there earlier and their line of defensive players, to drop some explosive charges right on the core part of their base. Those are just a couple of the ideas I've got for the future of this game."

So basically, Asteroids is only the beginning - which, I guess, sort of excuses the current build's lack of focus on, you know, asteroids. Currently, Firth's hoping money spent on in-game avatars will allow him to fund the rest of the game, though that might be a bit of a long shot given that we're talking about tiny, slightly differentiated triangles. The lowest tier is $4.99, which strikes me as an incredibly terrible idea, because - again - triangles. I am, however, somewhat partial to the "high roller," if only for its hilariously pitiful array of flashing Pimp-My-Ride-style lights. I'm less partial to its $49.99 price tag.

I wish the project the best of luck, though. It's quick, simple, but impressively large scale fun right now, and it could even evolve into something really special over time. Who knows? Maybe he'll eventually opt to add 16-bit graphics, color, a third dimension, an online subscription service, a cover system, motion control, and tablet support and rename it Videogame: The Videogame. It seems like a fairly logical progression.