'Speare

In a far-flung future, the grand cultural works of literature are strewn throughout the stars, with each planet in the Prosperean Galaxy given custodianship over one play by the Immortal Bard William Shakespeare. Sadly, the Insidian fleet takes advantage of internecine squabbles to invade, putting the fate of theatre (and with it, universal understanding) in jeopardy.

The player is the pilot of a one-ship task force charged with recovering the Knowledge Spheres containing the lost works from the sinister hordes of Insidian fighter drones. This is done by successfully navigating through vertical-scrolling levels, avoiding enemy fire and shooting down Insidian ships, which sometimes reveal "knowledge Spheres" (verbal power-ups) -- which may or may not bear a relationship to a Shakespearian "poetic code" each level is associated with, a phrase from one of Shakespeare's plays. The power-up will cycle through potential words when shot, with a bonus goal for every level collecting every word in the poetic code-phrase. Points are also given for gathering words that are homonyms and synonyms for words in the poetic code, but the player's ship is temporarily disabled if the word is irrelevant (or if the player collects a duplicate of a word they've already found.) Sporadically throughout levels artifacts can be found drifting by, which when scanned reveal nuggets of Shakespearian trivia. Following end-of-level boss fights, success in a trivia quiz endows players with bonus resources to allocate to ship enhancements, proving once and for all that not only is the pen mightier than the sword, it is also mightier than the star cruiser.