Guide written by john_matrix.
fellow beta tester and friend of the developer of this darn addicting game.

Furious Angels is an extremely gritty flat dimensional shooter. You're the last fighter of a last carrier, alone against the odds. Who are you, who is you own carrier won't matter. You don't have time to think, as soon as you'll take off the enemy will detect you and you'll have to desperately bring it on and rack up as many enemies as you can, to avenge your own kind!

First things first. YOU'RE GONNA DIE. Always. However the more enemies you'll feed to the angels of death, more honor will come to you.

The game is extremely punishing, usually you won't last more than 5 minutes (so yes, lasting at least 5 mins is cool here heh :D), because the waves STACK UP ENDLESSLY, this often before you actually have cleared the previous wave.. they'll simply keep coming and you'll be overwhelmed every time, no matter what you do.

The good ending.. well is a high score on the leaderboards, that's it, no happy ending, you'll never win.
Challenge your friends in the daily or general leaderboard!

Another basic rule is that you either die by getting your ship destroyed or by letting your friendly -but totally unarmed Carrier- get destroyed by enemy the Carriers and their main cannon. More on this later, in the enemies paragraph.



Guide edited in June 2017 to keep up with the recent game updates

The interface is extremely minimal. As the graphics, this game should be able to run even on low tier Intel Integrated graphic adapters, such as Intel HD 3000s.. anything above or a discrete graphic card with Directx 9 capability will run this game easily in full detail.

You can select a few options by hitting ESC or "back" on a gamepad, such as graphical options (shadow off/mid/high), if you want to have the default camshake, half of it or turn completely off.


You can cycle through the resolution of your monitor by clicking the former "resolution" line; usually the game will always start first at fullscreen using your desktop resolution.

There's an option to change fullscreen to borderless fullscreen or windowed mode.

You then can set levels and sound options too as well as to lower post processing to off/low or high

Edit: since the last patch (v1.1x), the controls have been updated to dual stick. Which means that you can freely fly towards any direction and then indipendently aim and fire towards another.

This is extremely useful and a welcome addition to the game.

You can still either use a gamepad, or a keyboard and/or a mouse.

You can add thrust to your ship only in the forward direction (using a D-pad OR W-A-S-D/Arrow Keys or the right-mouse click) and.. a single button in order to fire (A on a gamepad, Space key using the keyboard or right-click using the mouse).

Using the keyboard and mouse combo, the mouse allows you to aim the turret in the direction of the crosshair and you can freely move your ship using WASD. to achieve six-axis you have to press WA to move the ship North-West or SD to move it to South East.

The gamepad uses the left stick to maneuver the ship/tank and the right one to shoot towards the direction that is being aimed. This control method is very effective to master the movement of the ship, but to me lacks the aiming precision of using a mouse.

In my honest opinion, the best way to control this game, is using the mouse and keyboard combo; more precision is the key, even though you might not be that good at dogfighting your fighter around using the keys.

Keep in mind that the thrust is vectorial, meaning that as long as you keep thrusting into a direction and then quit to apply any thrust, the ship will keep the last vector momentum, slowly decelerating. Applying any new direction with the gamepad stick or WASD will make the ship/tank modify its vector and this allows your fighter to behave as a flying tank.

This ultimately means.. the circle of death. If you've ever played Mechwarrior then you already know what I mean.
If not.. you have to learn to master the ability of circling around your target while battering it with sustained fire from your main gun.

Your ship heals automatically whenever you quit shooting. It takes a few instants to complete the repairs and restock to max health, but if you keep shooting and keep getting hit, your HPs will decrease extremely quickly until death.
A beeping sound and your ship blinking, will warn you that your HPs are low, so you'll have to run away and find a quieter spot to repair or you'll die in the blink of an eye.

A circling "loading" icon on the ship will inform you that the repairs are going on. Once the loading icon is gone, your ship is
fully repaired.

You start with a level 1 or "basic" fighter. This has a dual chained primary fire that will shred enemy fighters in a single hit.


The more enemies you kill, the faster you'll get granted level 2 ramming fighter (yes you can bump into low level enemies such as fighters or bombers and totally wreck them if you have enough speed). Plus, you get a homing missiles salvo. This happens after a KILL count of 15.



Third and last level is a Tank/juggernaut with a turret that has lots of hull HPs and higher level damage primary shooting mode, plus a higher number of missile salvo. This upgrade comes 60 kills as a level 2 fighter.


Tip on the missiles: they reload only whenever you quit firing for at least 1 second. Open the fire up again after this time and the ship (either lvl2 fighter or the Tank) will grant the enemies with some nice homing missiles. Problem is.. you'll have an hard time to quit firing for that damn second.


As much as you play, you'll notice that several enemy ships have "hardpoints". An enemy ship's hull or hardpoint blinking means that a few more hits or a single hit will destroy it.
This applies pretty much the same for your own ship. Both the level 1 and lvl 2 fighter have their own hull as a "single hardpoint" so if your health reaches zero, you're toasted. Try again in the next run!

The Tank on the opposite, has "two" hardpoints. This means you can lose one side and the tank will keep going on, but with a reduced thrust because one of its engines has been destroyed.



Lose the other engine and your tank will spawn you back into a level 1 fighter as an escape pod. So you'll need to start the upgrade path again to reach the tank level. If you manage to live long enough to take that upgrade back of course.

Upgrades occurs as I said earlier with the kill count, so it won't matter the score you achieve while being either a lvl 1 or level 2 fighter. The Tank is the last upgrade.
Keep it good or let it get destroyed when you're halved, sometimes the speed of the fighter is more useful.

Obtain 15 kills and you'll upgrade to the ramming level 2 fighter. As I said before, if you bump with enough momentum into an enemy fighter or a bomber you'll destroy them. So use this to your advantage, altough it's a risky maneuver. This won't work on bigger enemies tough.

The kill count then resets after the upgrade; raise your kill count to 60 while being a lvl 2 fighter to upgrade to the tank.

These are the "kill points" that will count towards the reaching of the next upgrade of your ship:

• -Killing one jet will move the kill count up by 1;
  
• -A Raptor (those fast bastards deployed by the enemy carriers) will grant you 3 kills;
  
• -A Bomber (those fat dual engined things that shoot 4 homing missiles) grant 5 kills;
  
• -A Scorpion (the turret 4-engined tank) will increase the kill count by 10
  
• -A Miner (the slow "very big bomber" that deploys homing mines) will raise the kill count by 20.
  
• -Destroying an Impostor brings 30 points towards the upgrade score (the half of a Carrier!)
  
• -Finally, downing an enemy Carrier will count as a total of 60 kills.

In a few words, jets counts as a single unit, Raptors as 3 jets, Bombers as 5, Scorpions as 10, Miners as 20 and Carriers as 60.

Notice that if you manage to kill an enemy carrier while being a lvl 1 fighter, you'll only obtain the level 2 fighter upgrade. The kill count will still need 60 kill points afterwards to that upgrade in order to reach again the status of tank.

Example: you are in a basic fighter; you haven't killed anything yet but you manage to bring down an enemy Miner, then you'll instantly obtain the level 2 ramming jet as an upgrade. Afterwards the kill count is set back to 0 and you'll need 60 points (so three Miners, a single carrier or a combination of the above enemy units in order to unlock the Tank again).

: The Tank is a killing machine; the main gun is tremendously more effective and it can ram fighters, bombers, even Scorpions and Miners without getting any damage from doing that. Keep this in mind, use the ram to kill more enemies while your turret shoots in another directions.

Notice that because of the easy controls, the tank turret CANNOT BE AIMED separate from the hull of the tank.
So aiming the turret will make the hull of the tank to align back to the general direction your turret is aiming to. This can be a limiting factor, but won't require special controls or further keys/buttons to specifically operate the thing in respect of flying a fighter.
However this can be a pain in the rear when you are left with a damaged ("halved" tank). The limited thrust will make turning harder and you'll be rather slow and pretty much an easy target for everything, so keeping that Tank intact and fully operational is mandatory. If you manage..

A single hit will down this one. They spawn singularly or in five fighters formations. They shoot weak bullets compared to your fighter, but when they are swarming around, you'll notice their danger.. Taken singularly you'll chew through them like nothing, but when in swarms they pack a punch.

Tip: use these lowest tier enemies to rack up your score multiplier.. each consecutive kill will raise your score multiplier.. the higher it gets, the time slows down into some sort of bullet time and each consecutive kill will "blip" a sound.. when your multiplier is high, concentrate fire on bombers or finish that Miner or a Scorpion or even better a Carrier to hugely rack up your score count!!


These are slower and bigger thugs with small dual rotors engines. They can absorb a noticeable amount of damage and they take a while to acquire you as a target while hovering towards you. Once they target you, they'll fire 4 consecutive homing missiles. And keep doing the thing over and over even if they go off screen. And those missiles will always reach you unless you run away from them.

-Tip 1: DOWN THESE BASTARDS FIRST. Try to do that BEFORE they lay out their missiles! This also grants you a cumulative achivement.
Usually at the beginning of a wave (warned to the left of your screen under the score count) take note of how many bombers are in that wave.. so get them first, trying for a while to stay away from those pesky Scorpions or Miners, in order to deal with the latter AFTER you've dealt with the Bombers.

-Tip 2: you can dispatch their missiles by shooting towards them. This however will prevent your shots to reach for the bomber or other targets along your firing path and you must be on a straight shooting trajectory to destroy the whole salvo.. so do it at your own risk.
If you are in a fighter, you'd better circle thrust away to evade the missiles; while being in the tank, you'd better shoot them off unless you're about to lose one of your engines.. but often it's better to keep barraging fire even if you are on low health anyway. Send them to hell!


These are beefed up fighters, very similar yo your level 1 fighter, but faster. They thrust away quickly and then circle strafe you until they get close, lower their speed and lay down very precise burst of shots (much more than those fired from the standard fighters); if you don't get them quickly they'll blaze away off screen taking their time to perform again another attack. Very dangerous when you're a tank or when moving slowly as a fighter.

They are very dangerous especially when in packs (usually this happens if you let too many take off from an enemy Carrier). Prioritize them over the normal fighters when you aren't in a Tank. When you're fully upgraded they can lower your health points in the nick of time, so shoot them first.. and the sluggishness of the tank won't help, bear this in mind.

Usually you'll encounter them after the Bombers, sometimes even after the Scorpions in the early stages of the game, but it's rather rare.. You'll meet them for sure as they are spawned by the enemy Carriers.

Pro Tip: try to predict their flightpath towards you for their next attack and "pre-fire" in that general direction to damage or dispatch them BEFORE they perform their run against you!



These four engine hover tanks come with a turret, that shoots 4 consecutive shots. Be aware that these tanks try to predict your vectorial path, so they fire to anticipate your flight direction, making them extremely effective, especially when you're manning the Tank.

They must be your priority target when on-screen unless there's a Miner. Shoot two out of four of their engines to destroy them for good. Shooting at the hull or towards an already broken engine won't do a thing, so hit the remaining live engine hardpoints only!!

-Tip 1: when you are a fighter their shots are relatively easy to avoid, but they are dangerous when there are several Scorpions on screen as they can easily clutter your flight path.

-Tip 2: as long as you don't enter their field of view, they take a little while to turn over their turret and start shooting at you.
Kill them before they do. Do this when they are slightly off screen.
Notice that if they acquired you and then you manage do distance them and get back, they'll lay down preventive fire anyway even when they are off-screen, so they are a real pain!!
Kill them asap and possibly during your first unfriendly meeting!


The Impostor.. it's a new introduction of the latest version. Oh well, it's a copy of yourself in tank mode.

And this makes it extremely challenging, since the rate of fire of its main gun is much faster and unleashes a very fast burst of shots in a way that you can only dream while using your own tank. Maneuverability is comparable and you necessarily have to destroy both the sides of the Impostor to actually put it down for good.

The problem is that you'll have an hard time to consistently destroy the Impostor side that's still intact when it's opposed to your actual position; this because the destroyed side and the turret will soak damage without transferring it to the hardpoint.

Tips: when you are in tank mode, this is the highest overall priority target prior to an enemy carrier. This means that if you have a glimpse of the next wave that says "Impostor", prepare accordingly; as soon as you see a big arrow suddendly changing direction, head over there with your tank and front-ram the enemy impostor. It will go down instantly!

Otherwise try to prefire towards the arrow with a salvo of missiles, and then track the missiles to one of the two sides, even before the arrival of the Impostor.

Impostors can shred down your tank in a matter of seconds. They have an hard time tracking you while in fighter mode though; so try to maneuver in order to hit the side hardpoint and try not to indulge too much flying in a predictable vector or the Impostor will have a clear shot.

God I hate these. I hate everything in this game, but these.. these are a cross-over between a beefed up Bomber and a Scorpion, but they happily lay several couples of homing mines that do extremely high damage to you (the mines must make physical contact with your fighter/tank), if you have the foolish idea to fly towards them in a straight line.
These are your priority target. Put them down before Scorpions and Bombers (Miner>Scorpion>Bomber). They are also pretty tough and often require you to flank them in order to shoot the hardpoints they are made of.

In fact they have three hardpoints, a front section, a thin mid-section and a rear section.
You achieve their destruction by blowing up the front AND the rear section (basically, the hovering engines must be destroyed). Shooting a destroyed frontal or rear section won't spread damage over the near hardpoints, so keep in mind the flanking thing.
Blowing up the front or the rear will slow them down, but as long as the rear and the center section are alive, they'll keep laying down those death eggs at you even off-screen.

Tip 1: if you manage to flank them, then prioritize the CENTRAL section first (before destroying either the front or the rear) and keep hammering that destroyed central section; with this you'll deal double damage both to the front and the rear hardpoints even if they are brand new, quickly dispatching the Miner.
By doing this, you will not even need to destroy either the frontal nor the rear section.


Notice that other enemies such as Scorpions or Carriers won't spread damage if you keep shooting an already destroyed hardpoint to the near untouched ones!!!

Tip 2: the mines can be destroyed as the Bomber's missiles by simply shooting at them. This however brings up a limitation of the flight plane of the game: in order to shoot the mines, your fighter will move fire its shots on a slightly higher plane level of the game (where the mines ar laid), thus preventing you to deal damage to the miner itself (shots will fly over the miner) or other enemies that are on the "normal" level of flight on your firing path.

Tip 3: as it happens to the Scorpions, the miners won't lay down their mines unless they "sense" your fighter (normally when passing by them slightly over the borders of your screen).
If you manage to catch one by fast moving towards it, you may be able to shred it down to pieces far before it targets you and lays its mines down. Once you get acquired however, they'll keep laying mines even when off screen as the Scorpions do once they've already met you first.
Their mines have a limited range before they self destruct, but this range is rather noticeable (about one screen and a half) and it's better that you dispatch the Miners as a priority target.


These are the enemy Carriers. They spawn Raptors, one every three seconds; they take off from the central hull section. You can slow down their spawning rate by aiming at the central hull section, this will half down their take-off rate to roughly one every 6".
Either way the Carriers will undefinitely keep spawning them off, quickly making your survival completely uthopistic.


Furthermore, enemy Carries come with a frontal Ion Cannon, that is specifically tasked to shred down your allied Carrier to pieces. Once in range of your Carrier, this Cannon will fire a rapid dual-burst shot every 10 seconds. You can slow down the fire rate by destroying the related frontal section; however the cannon will keep firing anyway, but at a reduced rate of one shot every 10".



To destroy an enemy Carrier you have to blow up any of three hardpoints out of 7.
You can shoot the cannon/front hardpoint, the hangar/central section, the rear thrusters or the four hovering fans that surround the hangar. Any combination of three of these hardpoints will do the magic.


As usual a blinking hardpoint will show you which is the most damaged section to shoot at. Don't shoot towards already destroyed hardpoints as this will not spread damage to the near ones.



They also don't spawn that far away from your allied Carrier, so they'll get close to it in a few seconds and start to mangle the hull of your unarmed useless friend pretty soon.

Tip 1: Carriers are your top priority no matter what. FOUR (4) shots from their cannon and your own carrier is gone, marking the end of your game even if you're still alive and kicking (and often resulting into violence against one of your gaming peripherals, or your own desk or general blasphemy that can be heard from the neighbouring block).

On top of this, often the game will spawn waves composed not only of one but of two carriers (pay attention -if you manage with all the sXXt going on screen- to that "Warning: CarrierS detected").


"CarrierS" means at least two of them. I've managed to see THREE of them in the early stages (read: alphas/betas) of the game xD too. Total madness.

Two (or more, if you'll ever make it to spawn a wave of three -kudos to your metallic balls if you do-) means your own one will go down in the blink of an eye and since the friendly useless thing doesn't self repair.. I leave you to imagine the consequences if you let your own Carrier get shot once or twice from a single enemy capital ship, especially if you let that happen during any previous wave. Bye bye.

Tip 2: Carriers always spawn to the opposite direction you are, this if you keep your own carrier as a reference point/landmark in the game environment. Don't go far away from it or you'll lose the game since you won't be able to get back in time to save your own Carrier!!


Tip 3: Related to Tip 2: putting too much distance in between you and your own Carrier will force the game to spawn an enemy Carrier on top of any random wave. So don't get too far away! Or.. well, do it in the early stages of the game to farm up more score if you dare!

Tip 4: Pre-shoot the Raptors spawned by the Carriers, shooting in the general direction of the enemy Carrier signaling arrow! Do that to prevent their spreading numbers especially when the game spawns two Carriers at once in a wave!! Otherwise you'll soon have tons of Raptors swarming around and you don't want that to happen!

Please notice that everyday the game "resets" and presents you a randomly generated wave order of increasing difficulty. So it's normal that in a certain day you might fare higher scores than in other days.


But here we go: how are the scores of the leaderboards awarded?

Each day you can try your chances and do as many runs as you wish, in order to enter your best high score.

Notice that the day ranking will only keep the highest score achieved in a single run, it won't matter how many runs or kills you do to get a top 10/top5 or top 3 positioning for that day.

But how about the "ranks"?

Rank points are awarded like this:

• 100 ranks are added to the winner of the previous day.
  
• 50 ranks are awarded to the second and third ending position
  
• 25 ranks are added to the Top 10 (so from 4th to 10th position of the scoreboard)
  
• 5 ranks are added to the Top 100 (so from 11th to 100th position of the scoreboard)
  
• 1 ranks is added to anyone else outside of the Top 100.

A further 1 rank is awarded each 100 kills counted overall.

In a few words, you may post a top 10 score a day, with 3000 kills (no matter the number of runs that day): the next day you'll be awarded 25 ranks (for making it in the top 10) + 30 ranks (3000/100=30) for a total of 55 ranks.


There are a total of 17 achievements. Two are hidden.. I've got them if you check, but I won't spoiler them here :P

















Achievement icons are a courtesy of their own creator Flavio "Black Dog".

EDIT: given the newer upgraded controls that came with 1.1 patch, I'll have to re-take a new gameplay video. But thanks to Nvidia and its damned GeforceExperience that needs an account to actually register any in-game footage, I'll have to resort to something else so it will take a while.

In the meantime I'll still leave the old video. Even though this version of the game required higher coordination/skill to obtain certain results, the principles to keep up your score multiplier and general maneuvering tips stays roughly the same.

There's not much else to say other than I apologize for the bad quality of the video. I usually game @1200p and the combination of Radeon Relive and Youtube's conversion algorithms somehow made this video rather laggy and low quality. I'll try to crop to 1080p and see if I fare something better, in the meantime here's the video.

Direct link: https://youtu.be/OmVcvvoTfWE


18400+ run score. With 1.1x patches I've managed a 21k+ run, but more can be achieved. Pre 1.1 patch it was a miracle to survive past the 6 minutes mark, now you can endure much more.