Glitch Guard

Cinevva's analyzer read this game's design doc and its source, then wrote the brief below. "Make your own" hands it to the game creator as your opening message, so you start from a real spec rather than a one-line idea.

Create a single-screen 2D arcade shooter called “Glitch Guard,” presented as a neon cyberpunk/pixel-art cabinet defense game. Use a full-viewport, responsive canvas with crisp pixelated rendering and a dark navy-to-purple vertical gradient background. Add sparse cyan stars drifting downward, faint horizontal scanline/grid lines, glow effects, and subtle screen shake when the player is hit. Overlay a fixed HUD in a monospace/Courier New style: four cyan-outlined dark translucent stat boxes across the top reading SCORE (six-digit zero-padded score), LIVES (starting at 3), WAVE (starting at 1), and COMBO (starting at x1), with bright magenta values. Center the title near the top as “GLITCH GUARD // ARCADE DEFENSE” in glowing magenta. On desktop show the instruction “ARROW KEYS / A D TO MOVE · SPACE TO FIRE” at the bottom; on touch devices provide large bottom controls: cyan outlined left and right arrow buttons on the lower left and a magenta outlined FIRE button on the lower right. Support both keyboard and held pointer/touch controls.

The player is a small stylized neon defense ship/cannon near the bottom center. Draw it from simple glowing rectangles: a cyan horizontal base, magenta central cockpit, and a yellow vertical muzzle/barrel. Move it horizontally only with left/right arrows or A/D, clamped near the screen edges; it automatically stays about 62 pixels above the bottom. Hold Space or FIRE to shoot, with a roughly 0.18-second firing cooldown. Player shots are narrow, bright yellow vertical rectangles traveling rapidly upward.

The goal is to survive and clear descending formations of glitch invaders. Normal waves consist of a centered grid of enemies, initially 5 columns by 2 rows, increasing with wave number up to 9 columns and 5 rows. Enemies begin around y=120 with about 45 pixels of row spacing. They drift horizontally as a formation-like collection, reverse direction at screen edges, and move down 16 pixels on each edge reversal; their vertical positions have a small sine-wave wobble. Draw each invader as a glowing 28x16-ish rectangle with small dark eye cutouts and side/foot tabs. Alternate row colors between hot magenta and cyan. If an invader descends to near the player’s region, mark it dead and damage the player.

Player bullets destroy enemies on rectangle collision. Award 100 points times the current combo for a normal invader, increase combo up to x9, and keep the combo active for about 2.1 seconds after a hit; when the timer expires reset combo to x1. Spawn a small burst of colored square particles on destruction (cyan or magenta according to row). Clear every enemy to advance immediately to the next wave, display a temporary glowing centered “WAVE N” banner, and increase combo by one up to x9 when progressing. The HUD must update continuously.

Every fifth wave is a boss wave instead of a normal grid. Show a temporary glowing “BOSS WAVE // N” banner in magenta. The boss is a large magenta glowing rectangular glitch machine near the top center, about 150x54 pixels, with dark inset blocks, a bright yellow central detail, cyan lower trim, and a visible cyan boss health bar. It moves left and right, reverses at the screen edges, bobs vertically with a sine motion, and has health equal to 24 plus three times the wave number. It occasionally fires downward red/magenta enemy bullets. Boss shots are thicker red vertical rectangles and damage the player on collision. Player hits on the boss award 25 points times combo, increase combo up to x9, reset the combo timer, and create small magenta particles. Defeating the boss awards an additional 1000 times the wave score, creates a large magenta particle burst, removes the boss, and advances to the next wave.

The player starts with 3 lives. On a hit, prevent repeated damage for about 1.5 seconds, flash/blink the player, reset combo to x1, create a larger hot-pink particle burst, and apply brief screen shake. If lives reach zero, stop gameplay and show a centered full-screen dark radial-gradient overlay with a glowing magenta bordered panel. The initial overlay title is “GLITCH GUARD,” with the text “Defend the cabinet. Clear waves of descending glitch invaders. Every 5th wave brings a boss.” and a cyan glowing button labeled “INSERT COIN.” After game over, change the title to “CABINET OVERRUN,” show “Final score 000000 · You reached wave N.” using the actual score and wave, and change the button to “PLAY AGAIN.” Clicking it resets score, lives, wave, combo, enemies, bullets, particles, boss, and player position and starts wave 1. Keep the visual language consistently retro-futurist: black/navy backgrounds, cyan (#2ee8ff) and hot magenta (#ff55e8) neon glows, yellow player fire, red enemy fire, monospace typography, dark translucent panels, scanlines, and pixelated rectangular sprites. Do not add extra weapons, powerups, vertical player movement, or other unstated mechanics.