Terminal Invaders

Installation

Install from package

npm i terminal-invaders
npx terminal-invaders

or

npm install -g terminal-invaders

Install from source (bash)

git clone "https://github.com/Dru-429/Terminal-invaders"
cd Terminal-invaders
npm install terminal-kit drawille-canvas figlet

Controls

| Key | Action | |---|---| | Left Arrow | Move ship left | | Right Arrow | Move ship right | | Spacebar | Shoot bullet | | R | Restart game after game over | | CTRL+C | Quit application |

Overview

Terminal Invaders is a retro-style shooter built 100% for the command line. It uses Braille-character rendering to achieve higher visual fidelity within a text console, delivering smooth pixel-like animation in a terminal window.

Aliens, bullets, and the player ship are drawn on layered drawille canvases and composited together with colorful terminal-kit output. This is a nostalgic Space Invaders clone with modern Node.js tooling for an immediate plug-and-play CLI experience.

Features

• High-fidelity sprite designs: a custom X-Wing player ship and classic Space Invader monster variants rendered in Braille dots.
• Multi-layered color rendering:
  • Green ship
  • Red aliens
  • Yellow bullets using terminal-kit for rich terminal colors.
• Smooth 20 FPS gameplay loop with:
  • collision detection
  • bullet life management
  • score tracking
• Responsive controls and strict challenge mode with a 3-bullet active limit for authentic arcade pacing.
• Progressive alien wave system (2x5 start, 3x5, up to 5x5 rows)

Tech Stack

• Node.js (runtime)
• drawille-canvas (Braille-based canvas rendering)
• terminal-kit (terminal control, color output, input handling)
• figlet (ASCII art Headers and GAME OVER text)

Technical Highlights

• Layering strategy avoids color bleed by rendering ship, aliens and bullets on separate layers before compositing.
• Custom center alignment logic draws the figlet GAME OVER screen with floating overlay text.
• 40ms frame loop supports smooth gameplay and responsive control.

Contribution Guide

Thank you for considering enhancement of TERMINAL INVADERS!

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/your-feature.
3. Install dependencies and run the game to verify behavior.
4. Make your code changes and keep them focused (gameplay, UI, docs, bug fixes).
5. Add or update tests/docs as needed.
6. Commit with a clear message and push to your fork.
7. Open a pull request with a summary and testing notes.

We appreciate clean code, minimal side effects, and user-friendly controls.

Running

node index.js

Tip: Use R to restart and keep chasing higher score multipliers as the alien grid grows.