Hold the bottom of the screen and shoot down flocks of diving birds, and when you can't dodge, throw up a force-field to weather the swoop.
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How to play
Birds perch in formation above you and peel off to dive, firing as they come. You have a shield on a cooldown rather than a permanent one — and using it aggressively is how you get paid, because a bird popped on an active shield bursts into pickups that fly to you.
The shield destroys any bird or bullet that touches it while it is up, then drains and locks until it recovers.
A kill made with the shield drops homing pickups worth score and a brief rapid-fire window.
Larger birds have wings, and their bodies cannot be hurt until both wings are shot away.
Shooting off only one wing leaves the bird alive and flying more erratically than before.
After several waves a mothership arrives, protected by rows you have to open a path through.
Controls
Desktop: ← → move, Space to fire, Shift or ↓ to raise the force-field shield
Phone & tablet: keyboard recommended for this arcade shooter
Tips & strategy
Shield offensively, not defensively. Raising it to survive a dive wastes it; raising it into a dive turns the kill into pickups and a rapid-fire window.
Take both wings before the body. Damage to a winged bird's body does nothing at all, so a half-stripped bird is time you have already spent for no result.
One-winged birds are harder to predict than untouched ones — if you start on the wings, finish the job.
Watch the shield lock, not the shield. The dangerous moment is always the window right after it drops.
Save rapid fire for the formation rather than the diver. Two bullets on screen is worth far more against a perched row than against one bird.
Origins
Plume draws on Phoenix, released in 1980, which is usually named as one of the first games to end a stage with a single large enemy rather than another wave — the ancestor of the boss fight.
Before that it does something subtler. The large birds can be shot at piece by piece, but a wing shot off grows back within seconds, so only a hit to the body brings one down. The mothership at the end sits behind a shield you must chew a hole through, and your only defence is a shield of your own that freezes you in place while it holds.
About Plume
Plume is an original free browser arcade shooter in the fixed-position blaster tradition, with a defensive shield twist. No install required.
A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.
