''Super Ox Wars'' is a

vertically scrolling shooter A vertically scrolling video game or vertical scroller is a video game in which the player views the field of play principally from a top-down perspective, while the background scrolls from the top of the screen to the bottom (or, less often, from ...

for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

developed by

Jeff Minter Jeff Minter (born 22 April 1962) is an independent English video game designer and programmer who often goes by the name Yak. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and has created dozens of games during his career, which began in 19 ...

and Ivan Zorzin of Llamasoft and published via the

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in 2012. The game is the first vertically scrolling shooter from Llamasoft and is based on such games as ''

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'' and ''

Star Force also released in arcades outside of Japan as ''Mega Force'', is a vertical-scrolling shooter computer game released in 1984 by Tehkan. Gameplay In the game, the player pilots a starship called the ''Final Star'', while shooting various enemie ...

''. It is the ''Minotaur Project'' game representing the

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platform. In April 2015 the game became free to play. The red and blue colours in Super Ox Wars are drawn from the ''Garantido'' and ''Caprichoso'' teams in the

Parintins Folklore Festival Parintins Folklore Festival (''Festival Folclórico de Parintins''), or often also called ''Festival do Boi-Bumbá'', Bumba Meu Boi, or simply ''Festival'', is a popular annual celebration during three days in late June held in the Brazilian city ...

which recreates the legend of a resurrected ox.

Gameplay

The player's ship travels over a vertically scrolling landscape with both ground-based targets and waves of enemy attack ships to shoot. The ship fires constantly (although

iCade ICADE is the brand name by which two schools of the Comillas Pontifical University, located in Madrid ( Spain), are known. It stands for '' Instituto Católico de Administración y Dirección de Empresas'' (''Catholic Institute of Business Admi ...

users can disable this to get an experience more akin to an actual arcade machine). Each level ends with a boss battle which has to be completed before the next level begins. The colour of the player's ship and bullets, and an indicator display of two oxen, one red, one blue indicate to what extent the player is invested in either ''Caprichoso'' (blue) or ''Garantido'' (red). Shooting targets or picking up collectables of one colour or the other moves the player further into that polarity and increases the score for that polarity. The total score is an aggregate of ''Garantido'' and ''Caprichoso'' scores. A ''Caprichoso'' polarized ship will repel enemy bullets while the bullets of a ''Garantido'' polarized ship can push enemy shots away. The power of these actions is increased the more deeply the player is in the relevant polarity. While understanding the subtle changes that the two polarities bring to the game is useful it is also possible to play the game as a straight shooter. In common with other Llamasoft games Super Ox Wars saves a player's best achievement at the end of each level, allowing them to resume at their previous best score and number of lives (number of lives taking precedence over score).

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is used to hold leaderboards and achievements.

Reception

* ArcadeLife rated it 88/100. * The Smartphone App Review site gave it a score of 92%. * AppTudes awarded it 4.5 stars out of 5.

References

{{Jeff Minter 2012 video games Fictional cattle IOS games IOS-only games Vertically scrolling shooters Video games developed in the United Kingdom Llamasoft games Single-player video games