Programmed by Simon Nicol, with music by Rob Hubbard, Crazy Comets is the beginning of Simon Nicol‘s preoccupation with the arcade game Mad Planets.

Crazy Comets was first published by Martech in 1985.

After Crazy Comets, Nicol then made Mega Apocalypse, and then Apocalypse II (which never got released). Each game a clone of Mad Planets, although with Nicol‘s own twist.

You can press F1 to switch between one or two players.

The aim is to destroy all planets before they go “super nova”, but that’s easier said than done. Shooting the planets as quickly as possible seems like the solution, but in doing so you don’t get to see them in all their glory.

You can also rescue space capsules for extra points.

In Crazy Comets you CANNOT rotate your ship, like you can in Mega Apocalypse. I scoured the internet for manuals for this game, and nowhere could I find any mention of rotation controls. I tried pressing every key during the game, and nothing would make my ship rotate. I had to conclude, then, that ship rotation was not a thing in Crazy Comets. How you take that depends on your point of view. For example, without rotation, the game allows you to focus on evasion, so arguably plays better than Mega Apocalypse, which has rotation. Or, you can be disappointed about it. It’s up to you. 🙂

More: Crazy Comets on Wikipedia
More: Crazy Comets on CSDb