Shareware Mac game developer Strange Flavour has released their sophomore Mac game — Airburst. The game is ready for download now and costs US$5 (or £2 if you’re in the U.K.) to register.
Like their previous effort, Bushfire, Strange Flavour has taken a new twist on an old favorite. You pit your skills against up to three other human-controlled (on the same Mac) or up to eight computer-controlled players as you protect your floating ring of balloons from razor sharp flying balls that carom around the sky-high arena. Using a shield, you reflect the ball back towards your enemies, hoping to topple them from their balloon platforms. In the classic arcade game style, you can collect powerups that grant you special features, and yummies that you can collect for extra points too.
Airburst features a dozen different game types and millions of different game level combinations, according to the developers. You can also edit your balloon platform designs and apply custom skins and stickers, too. The game features the same polished production values first seen by Mac users in Bushfire — eye-capturing animations and vibrant colors, custom sound effects, and a butt-shaking soundtrack.
Airburst requires a PowerPC G3-based Mac with a “decent graphics card,” running Mac OS 8.6 through Mac OS X.
On Friday, Strange Flavour announced plans to support LAN and Internet multiplayer functionality in a future update to Airburst. Strange Flavour’s Aaron Fothergill said that a crush of requests for networkable multiplayer support “have moved the development of Airburst network play up the priority list so that it can be made available as soon as possible.” Support for the Mac-only online multiplayer gaming service GameRanger is also being considered.
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