Tail Gunner

Fan Recreation

This is my tribute to the 1979 Vectorbeam arcade classic that ate a lot of my quarters back in the '80s.

I put this together on Sept 2, 2026, after a voice in my head insisted I make it. I spent 14 hours straight at my computer, much of it spent poring over classic gameplay videos and screenshots. I used Paper.js for rendering and built the spaceships manually by entering vertex data—just a dozen points and edge connections per model.

The next day, I used jsfxr to recreate the classic 8-bit sound effects. Add in another 4 hours to squash bugs and hook up cloud high scores, and the whole project came together in about 18 hours total.

Recreating the enemy flight formations was certainly the toughest part. The whole game fits neatly into a tiny 98KB zip file. You can play it right here in your browser!

Controls

Use the mouse to aim and shoot. Use the secondary button for shields, or use the spacebar.

Have fun!

You can also play it at GoOcto.com