Plume

Birds wheel and dive in formation from above. Move along the bottom, shoot them out of the sky, and raise your shield when a swoop is about to hit you. Clear each wave to advance and survive the escalating flocks.

• Shoot birds before they dive into your position
• Raise the force-field shield to absorb hits you can't outrun
• Manage your shield, it isn't a permanent wall

• Desktop: ← → move, Space to fire, Shift or ↓ to raise the force-field shield
• Phone & tablet: keyboard recommended for this arcade shooter

• Thin formations from the edges so fewer birds peel off to dive at once
• Save the shield for the committed swoop, not stray shots
• Step up to the harder difficulty when the early flocks stop threatening you

Plume draws on Phoenix, released by Amstar 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 apart piece by piece: take the wings off and the bird is crippled but still coming, worth less and harder to predict. The mothership at the end sits behind a shield you must chew a hole through while it advances, and your only defence is a shield of your own that freezes you in place while it holds.

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.