Gyruss (1983). Play online

Summary

Gyruss is a tube‑shooter that makes you fly around an implicit circle, with stars rushing outward as you chase Bach’s “Toccata” in a fast‑paced synth version. Its one‑point perspective pulls the vanishing point to the screen centre, and every shot converges there.

The cabinet boasted true stereo sound, thanks to discrete audio circuits and five AY‑3‑8910 sound chips feeding a DAC. Under the hood were two Z80 CPUs, a 6809 and an 8039 microcontroller, a hardware mix that was unusual for 1983.

Enemies include swirling ship formations, three‑satellite clusters that grant better weapons, indestructible asteroids and laser‑beam generators that you must knock out. Extra lives appear at point thresholds, but they vanish once the score passes 999,990. The game ran in both upright and cocktail cabinets and was licensed to Centuri before Konami shipped conversion kits; today players like R. Hirst “KOO” recall mastering its relentless loops.

Storyline

In Gyruss, the adventure kicks off with the on‑screen message “2 WARPS TO NEPTUNE.” The player pilots a ship through a tunnel of enemies, each warp bringing them one step closer to a planet.
When a planet is reached, the ship flies toward it and a short bonus round begins, letting the player blast foes for extra points without risk of being destroyed. After Neptune the sequence reverses: three warps separate the player from Uranus, then Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and finally Earth, each planet requiring three warps.
Stage 1 and every tenth stage are special – enemies appear but do not fire as they enter the screen. After the Earth bonus stage the game launches a rapid “3 WARPS TO NEPTUNE” segment, after which the cycle starts over from the beginning.