Zargs

Zargs is a 1-player arcade game for the Apple II.

Intelligence has learned of the approach of several thousand mysterious bright objects from the region of the Crab Nebula. It has been concluded that the Earth will soon be under attack from alien spacecraft. The only hope is to complete and arm the top secret Zarg spaceships, military weapon superships constructed just inside the orbit of the great asteroid belt.

As captain of each interstellar battleship, you must work against time to properly pilot, rotate, and precisely dock your spacecraft into one of the four Zarg ports before beaming yourself back to Earth where you captain yet another craft.

Gameplay consists of 4 levels. In the first level, the player must navigate between asteroids, balloons, and spaceships, to maneuver their vessel out of the top center of the screen. The player can move left, right, up, and down. If the player strikes an item, a ship is lost, and the player starts with a total of 5 ships.

From there, the player has reached outer space and the second level. They must navigate horizontally across the screen, as numerous pieces of debris streak across the player's path in a vertical direction. The player is armed with a laser on this stage, and can shoot debris in their path. The player must exit through a small hole to the right of the screen.

On the third level, the player must align their ship with the superstructure of the Zarg vessel. They have a limited time to do this, or their ship is destroyed. The player must repeat the first 3 levels 4 times, to dock at all 4 pots on the Zarg ship. If the player's ship is destroyed on levels 1 - 3, they restart on level 1.

After completing levels 1 - 3 four times, the player advances to the fourth stage, where the Zarg is activated, and the alien invasion commences. The player can fire in the 4 cardinal directions while remaining stationary in the center of the screen. The player must quickly destroy incoming vessels before incoming alien fire destroys the Zarg.