Nova Boltstar is the pixel-perfect video game that's out of this world! Play as Nova, a cyborg princess who must fight her way through the Techno Tourney to save her kingdom, Cybervania, and her brother, Alaric, from the evil Xandra Blackwood, who is madly in love with him and seeks to force him into marriage and take over Cybervania if she wins! Click the Green Flag to start the game. After you see the startup jingle and the words “Press Space to Start” show up, do exactly that. Then you will have three options on the menu. Press the up and down arrows to navigate this menu, and press space when you are ready. New Game starts a new game, Continue will ask you for a four-digit password, and Filters lets you navigate a library of game filters for a fun game experience! Press the arrow keys to move to whatever square you would like, and press Z, X, C, and V to use your four Battle Chips to fire different weapons! Every weapon has a different cooldown, so be patient and strategic! You and your opponent have healthbars, so don’t let yours drain! Move around the board to dodge enemy projectiles. Seems easy at first, but some of the battles get harder and harder, so be careful! Arcturia, a helpful if not friendly saleswoman with dwarfism, has been chosen to set up shop for the contenders for the Techno Tourney, as long as they aren’t banned for life! You don’t really buy anything with real or virtual money here, but you can exchange Battle Chips here. Most cutscenes are accompanied by a skip button. Click it, and you will get to the Versus segment, which introduces you to your opponent you will be facing. There will be a brief interaction between Nova and the opponent, but you can press space to skip it before the words “Press Space to Start” show up, prompting you to do exactly that. At the end of each battle, there will be either an ending line from the enemy, or one last interaction between the enemy and Nova. You cannot skip this, but you do get a jingle and words that either tell you that you’ve won or lost, depending on what you do. Then, you get a look at the Battle Chips you have, and a password that documents your progress. Write it down somewhere, and you can get back to the game when you press Continue at the beginning and insert the right password. You also have the options to go to Arcturia’s Shop, or head on to the next battle with the weaponry you already have! You also access this menu after inserting your password. Press up and down to navigate this menu, and press space when you are ready. If you finish a battle with a complete healthbar, you get to participate in a round of Genie’s Wish, the popular game show hosted by Amira, the most theatrical Genie in the industry! She will challenge you to one of these four bonus minigames. As your progress increases, so does the difficulty of these games, so be ready! Win a bonus game after every battle, a feat that requires you to win all of them with complete healthbars, and you might get a surprise during the final battle! WALL CRUNCHER Use the left and right arrow keys to navigate the platform and catch the ball so that it hits all of the blocks at the top of the screen. Make sure the ball doesn’t get to the bottom of the screen! ALIEN BUG ESCAPE Use the up and down arrow keys to navigate your spaceship to get past a horde of alien bugs! Sounds familiar, but you can either press Z to blast them or get out of their way! The goal is to make it in one piece, not to destroy all of the aliens. SCREEN SYNC The screen behind you will give you an arrow key to push, and if you push it before the timer runs out, you get another chance! However, if you hit the wrong arrow, you strike out! BATTER UP! A digital enemy launches baseballs at you! Three strikes and you’re out! Luckily, you can press space to hurl the baseballs back at him! You can do it! You will do it nine times if you want to win the game! You have four tries in this game. Every time you lose a battle, you lose a try and have to reset that battle. These tries are illustrated in four renders of Nova’s head. If one is lost, it will fade to a silhouette. If all four tries are lost, you are sent to a continue screen where you must press space before the timer runs out if you want to continue your game. You will gain four more tries, and you will go to the menu where you have to choose between starting a battle or going to Arcturia’s shop. If the timer runs out on the continue screen, you will be sent to a game over screen, then you will be sent to a screen that shows your final password. Remember or write down your password, and then press space to be sent back to the startup jingle.
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