At its core, Galactic Gladiator is a top-down, vertically scrolling space shooter. The basic game play is similar to many classic shooters: destroy all of the attacking enemies utilizing your ship’s weaponry and defences, both of which can be improved by collecting various power-ups. The game is certainly a “shooter”, although it isn’t exactly the typical “arcade” type. While it still appeals to classic shooter fans, we’ve included several elements to make success more about skill, practice and strategy. Missions in Galactic Gladiator are separated into three types: “Levels”, “Skirmishes” and “Challenges”. Levels use the classic shooter model: a sequence of missions interspersed with plot segments. These levels finish with large “boss” battles that the shooter genre is famous for. Skirmishes provide a better way to prove your skills: endless waves of enemies will be thrown at you, becoming denser and denser until you eventually die. The amount of damage that you can do to the attacking forces will dictate your score, and is highly related to the amount of time that you can survive. Challenges are generally shorter, and concentrate on one particular skill. Some of these are set up like training missions: “Lasers 1”, “Lasers 2” and “Lasers 3” are progressively harder challenges aimed at helping the player to become proficient with the “lasers” weapon. For the more competitive players, the web site includes an “online high score database”. One can submit his/her scores to this database either via a web interface, or right from within the game. These scores are then available online (associated with the player’s online user name), and players can see who the top people are in each mission, or simply track their own progress. As well, all of your scores will give you “ranking points” based on how well you do compared to other players. When summed, ranking points determine the overall ranking order of all players.