Space Explorer

A retro arcade space shooter built with Phaser 4 RC, TypeScript, and Vite. Pilot a responsive ship through a 10-level campaign, survive escalating hazards, defeat themed bosses, collect power-ups, and upgrade your ship between missions.

Playable here: Space Explorer

Quick start

bun install
bun run dev

Open http://localhost:5173 in your browser.

Controls

Input	Action
Arrow keys / WASD	Move ship
Space / Click	Fire weapons

Game overview

Core loop

Menu → Game → Planet Intermission → Game → ... → Victory

• Fight through enemy waves, hazards, and bosses
• Lose HP on hits, but continue the run while you still have remaining lives
• Respawn after death if lives remain
• Spend score as credits between levels to upgrade your ship
• Reach the end of the campaign to trigger the Victory flow

Campaign roster

Level	Name	Highlights	Boss
1	Solar Slipstream	high-contrast onboarding, rhythmic telegraphs	No
2	Prism Reef	visibility pressure + ambush timing	No
3	Magnetar Foundry	storm-and-gravity pressure, first wall	Arc Warden Khepri
4	Fracture Convoy	frontal lane control and convoy choke points	Marshal Bront
5	Cinder Vault	attrition gauntlet through ember hazards	Pyre Leviathan
6	Graveyard Lattice	collapsing salvage corridors	Reliquary Crown
7	Mirage Archive	deceptive calm, memory-fog ambushes	Archivist Shade
8	Halo Cartography	fast orbital pattern prediction	Orbital Cantor
9	Glass Rift Narrows	claustrophobic canyon precision flying	Rift Basilisk
10	Eventide Singularity	full-system anomaly finale	Axiom Null

Enemy roster

• Scout — fast, low-HP contact threat
• Fighter — mobile ranged pressure
• Bomber — slower, heavier target that drops bombs
• Swarm — fragile group attackers
• Gunship — heavier enemy with spread fire
• Bosses — named encounters with distinct styles such as barrage, pursuit, carrier, bulwark, and maelstrom patterns

Gameplay systems

• Scripted level sections — pacing, hazard cadence, and encounter focus can shift inside a level
• Hazard scripting — asteroid bursts, ring crossfire, nebula ambushes, gravity wells, and canyon-wall rock corridors
• Adaptive section pacing — tension-arc shaping and fairness throttles smooth extreme overlap spikes
• Adaptive boss scaling — boss durability scales with player upgrade investment and campaign progression
• Per-level procedural music — each level and boss has its own Web Audio-driven music identity
• Power-up drops — temporary pickups such as health, shield, and rapid-fire boosts
• Lives + respawn flow — the run continues after death if lives remain
• Upgrade progression — intermission upgrades unlock over time and obey progression caps

Upgrades

Bought during the planet intermission screen using score as currency:

• Hull Armor — raises max HP
• Weapons — increases damage
• Fire Rate — improves firing speed
• Shield — increases hit absorption

Some upgrades unlock later in the campaign and use progression caps so the run scales in a controlled way.

Tech stack

• Phaser 4 RC (4.0.0-rc.7) — game engine
• TypeScript — strict typing across gameplay and config
• Vite 8 — dev server and production build
• Bun — package manager / script runner

Project structure

The internal architecture rules live in docs/architecture-guidelines.md.

src/
├── config/
│   ├── LevelsConfig.ts          # public level-config entrypoint
│   ├── UpgradesConfig.ts        # upgrade definitions and progression rules
│   ├── playerConfig.ts          # player stat scaling
│   └── levels/
│       ├── types.ts            # level config types
│       ├── selectors.ts        # getLevelConfig / campaign selectors
│       ├── registry.ts         # ordered campaign registry
│       ├── musicHelpers.ts     # procedural music config helpers
│       └── definitions/        # one file per level
├── entities/
│   ├── Player.ts
│   ├── PowerUp.ts
│   ├── Asteroid.ts
│   ├── BomberBomb.ts
│   ├── Bullet.ts
│   ├── EnemyBullet.ts
│   └── enemies/
├── scenes/
│   ├── BootScene.ts
│   ├── PreloadScene.ts
│   ├── MenuScene.ts
│   ├── GameScene.ts
│   ├── PlanetIntermissionScene.ts
│   ├── GameOverScene.ts
│   └── VictoryScene.ts
├── systems/
│   ├── AudioManager.ts         # procedural audio and music
│   ├── CollisionManager.ts
│   ├── EnemyPool.ts
│   ├── HUD.ts
│   ├── LevelManager.ts
│   ├── PlayerState.ts
│   ├── WaveManager.ts          # config-driven enemy + hazard spawning
│   └── ...
└── utils/
    ├── constants.ts
    └── layout.ts

Design notes

• Config-driven campaign — levels, music, hazard sections, and bosses are authored through config
• Procedural presentation — visuals and audio avoid external asset-heavy pipelines where possible
• Object pooling — bullets, enemies, bombs, asteroids, and bullets are pooled for performance
• Arcade readability first — later levels add complexity through authored pacing and hazards, not only stat inflation

Development

bun run dev      # start local dev server
bun run build    # type-check and production build
bun run preview  # preview production build
bun run lint     # eslint
bun run knip     # unused-code analysis
bun run levels:validate # config validation for level authoring

Docs

• docs/architecture-guidelines.md — scene/system boundaries and coding rules
• docs/procedural-music-system.md — procedural music architecture, authoring contract, and deterministic QA workflow
• docs/campaign-expansion-plan.md — historical expansion plan and design-reference notes

Release notes

• Latest

Acknowledgements

This project was largely autonomously built using Flow for OpenCode, a planning-and-execution workflow plugin that turns goals into tracked, reviewer-gated feature sessions.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE.