How to Play Switch ’N’ Shoot

Switch ’N’ Shoot is an arcade game with only one button — not a number of inputs you see too often.

Because the way one would interface with this game is so simple, you may be wondering to yourself, “Does anyone even need an explanation of Switch ’N’ Shoot in the first place?”

And to that, I reply, “Probably not…but I certainly won’t judge you if you do.” As a matter of fact, I’ll be tickled pink if this blog post entices even one additional person to play Switch ’N’ Shoot — particularly the rare cabaret that I operate via Wilcox Arcade at Know-a-Guy in Murray, Kentucky.

You see, as the operator of the only Switch ’N’ Shoot arcade cabinet in the commonwealth of Kentucky, I have a vested interest in seeing this unique indie experience succeed. Beyond that, I’m just plain a fan of the game: I’ve played it on my Nintendo Switch since my freshman year of college in 2019.

Regardless of my personal ties to the title, today is as good of a day as any for you to board the indie arcade train — and so begins the Wilcox Arcade guide to Switch ’N’ Shoot.

Handling the Controls

All right, I promise I’m not trying to insult your intelligence here — because for some people, getting acclimated to Switch ’N’ Shoot can be genuinely disorienting.

That lone button I mentioned at the top? On the arcade cabinet, it’s big and red, and it toggles two simultaneous functions when pressed: switching your direction of movement while shooting a bullet at oncoming enemies. At risk of belaboring the point, that’s where we get the name “Switch ’N’ Shoot.”

Your ship will always move in one direction or the other. Whenever you careen off one side of the screen, you’ll automatically slide back in from the other side of the screen. (I like to call this the “Pac-Man effect.”) Really, the only two outcomes that would interrupt your perpetual flow would be colliding with an enemy — or better yet, slapping that bid, red button.

Fortunately, your ship will only ever move on the x-axis. Either you’re constantly heading left, or you’re constantly heading right. Only those pesky enemies will rain down upon you via the y-axis.

Avoiding enemies is, of course, the main reason why you’d endeavor to switch directions in the first place. Even though shooting foes may be most direct path to victory, you’ll sometimes be sandwiched between a parallel attack pattern, at which point you’ll be switching directions rapidly just to stay away from them.

But remember this: Your ship will always shoot a bullet any time you switch directions. In other words, these functions will never occur independently of each other. Smart timing will be your best bet for success.

The good news? I can’t think of a single instance when you wouldn’t want to shoot. The enemy hordes will become so thick over the course of the game that you may find yourself “spamming” for your life anyway. Thankfully, it’s not possible to destroy power-ups or shields in the crossfire (more on those later).

I often tell beginners that playing Switch ’N’ Shoot can feel like patting your head and rubbing your tummy. Yes, it’ll feel weird and dissonant at first — but once you’ve mastered the mechanics, you’ll wonder why you were ever stumped.\

Recognizing the Items

Well, I just hammered into your brain how important it is to avoid anything descending from the top of the screen — so now, I’ll tell you when to do the exact opposite.

There are two types of items in Switch ’N’ Shoot that will dramatically improve your odds of survival: a yellow circle bearing a plus sign and a blue circle bearing a plus sign.

Intercepting the yellow circle will “power up” your ship — which, in this game, will grant you more effective firepower against enemies. There are five possible enhancements to earn in sequence (not including the skinny bullet equipped from the outset).

With the first two power-ups, your bullet will incrementally grow in size. The third time around, you’ll shoot two bullets at once; and on the fourth, you’ll jump up to three concurrent bullets. That fourth step is my personal favorite, purely because the wider spread is so potent against opponents.

The fifth step, while arguably the most destructive, will also impose a major impediment on your maneuverability. At this level, you’ll unleash constant beam from your ship — virtually no aiming required to vaporize baddies — but you’ll also be constrained by beams on either side of the screen, much like bumpers on a bowling lane. Hitting either of these beams will result in an instant “game over,” so say goodbye to the aforementioned “Pac-Man effect” for the time being.

Cycling through all five yellow power-ups is necessary to advance to the next “sector” (i.e., the next stage, level, board, or whatever you may call it). Climbing to a higher sector will increase your score multiplier upon death, potentially putting you much higher on the leaderboard than what you may have otherwise achieved with your raw kill count alone.

However, missing a power-up will revert you back to the previous step in the sequence (e.g., being demoted from three bullets to a measly two). In the case of the fifth step, every time you return to that final beam, the bumpers bottlenecking you will grow larger in size, narrowing the screen real estate at your disposal. Believe me: Things can get pretty tight after a while.

The blue circle, on the other hand, will shield you from exactly one hit — one mulligan if you’re ever in a pinch. Unlike yellow power-ups, which appear on their own, you must kill a blue enemy to secure the blue shield, which will drop down upon you at that point. That’s right: You must successfully complete two actions in succession to secure this much-needed protection.

Obviously, you’ll always want to avoid getting hit, but even so, I occasionally use the shield to save myself if I get trapped in a parallel attack pattern, as mentioned above.

Don’t be afraid to collect power-ups — as they’re essential help you improve your overall score — but try not to put yourself into precarious positions over them. Yellow power-ups will appear with regularity throughout the game, whereas blue shields seem to appear once per level starting in the second sector.

Interpreting the HUD

The Switch ’N’ Shoot heads-up display, or HUD, is pretty straightforward, but I figured I may as well be comprehensive if you’ve already come this far.

The yellow bar at the top of the screen tracks your progress through the power-up cycle: five little notches indicating the level of firepower you’re packing. As you might expect, the bar will reset once you’ve circled back to that default skinny bullet.

Just below that yellow bar, and aligned with the right corner of the screen, you’ll see your total points, a direct reflection of how many enemies you’ve dispatched thus far.

Quick aside: Endgame scoring will not be as direct a reflection of your kills — due to the score multiplier that will be applied to your total, factored by whichever sector you last reached. Reaching the second sector will lob an extra 12.5 percent onto your total; the third sector 25 percent; the fourth sector 37.5 percent; the fifth sector 50 percent; the sixth sector 62.5 percent; and the rest is up to you to discover.

On the arcade version of Switch ’N’ Shoot — which you can play at Know-a-Guy in Murray, Kentucky — you can also see in the bottom-left corner of the screen how many credits are currently queued. Inserting one credit will entitle you to two plays — just me trying to be generous since the game can sometimes scare off newcomers — and one credit is equal to 25 cents. (I accept quarters or cashless payments.)

You’ll see the leaderboard whenever you die, and this is where things might get…controversial. Given the single-button slant of Switch ’N’ Shoot, you can’t actually input your name nor initials upon completing a run; instead, the game will dole out a silly moniker at the outset of each credit. Switch ’N’ Shoot creator Matt Glannville considers this relative anonymity part of the game’s charm…and I guess I can see his point.

Anyone going for glory, so to speak, should contact me, Dustin Wilcox, so I can hook you up with some recognition. I’ll reward you with a free Wilcox Arcade trucker if you make it to 300 points — specifically on the arcade version at Know-a-Guy in Murray, Kentucky. (Don’t forget to submit photo proof).

But hey, now that you can parse the HUD, you’re that much closer to whipping Switch ’N’ Shoot into shape.

Beating the Boss

It’s time for me to own up to my omission: I haven’t told you about the most exciting diversion in Switch ’N’ Shoot — something few players in Kentucky have witnessed with their own eyes.

Upon reaching the fourth sector, you’ll encounter the boss of the game, whose attack patterns are surprisingly easy to track. This big guy glides left and right at a constant rate, while also glacially inching down the screen toward your ship. His descent is so slow, in fact, that you should hardly consider it a threat: You’ll knock him backward by shooting his two eyes.

What you should watch out for, though, is the massive beam he’ll fire at you every couple of times you puncture said eyes. Plus, he’ll periodically discharge waves of four to five enemies from his mouth.

Cycling through all five power-ups is how you’ll “beat” the boss — which, like every other instance before this, really just means you’ll exit the sector. Being entirely score-oriented, Switch ’N’ Shoot has no ending whatsoever, so you’ll eventually see this behemoth again.

My Personal Strategies

If you’ve made it this far into my article, you’re now entitled to the finest Switch ’N’ Shoot information on the Internet…or at least what I personally have learned during my time with the title.

Get real comfortable in the first sector — because, in my opinion, that’s the easiest place to farm points. I’d go so far as to recommend accruing 500 or more points on the front end, considering the conflict will only become hairier as you progress.

How do you linger in one sector, you may ask? It’s pretty simple: Rock back and forth between the third and fourth power-ups. It’s not like you’re required to grab the fifth power-up, as it could honestly wind up jeopardizing your safety anyway. For that reason, I generally prefer to avoid the final power-up of a given sector when I’m in the pursuit of more points.

That said, the number of onscreen enemies will continue to increase the longer you spend in the first sector, so you certainly can’t camp there forever. If it’s a choice between surviving to see another sector or dying over a handful of points, I would definitely just move onto what’s next.

I’d say the second and third sectors are pretty apt for accumulating points, too, even if they are more difficult in nature. The fourth sector, for its part, is an especially ideal interval to take your danged time. Yes, hanging around that slow-shuffling boss can become tedious after a while — but you won’t regret stacking up the points under such low-stakes circumstances. (The resulting score multiplier will help, as well.)

Speaking of which, after beating the boss, I wouldn’t advise spending a significant length of time in any succeeding sector, because the sixth and beyond will feel pretty friggin’ punishing by comparison. By that point, I’m typically more concerned with reaching the highest possible sector before dying so I can beef up my score multiplier.

My highest score at Know-a-Guy was 2,243 — whereas my highest score at home was only 1,029. To be perfectly frank, most people get between zero and 15 points on their first try.

But that’s exactly why I wrote the Wilcox Arcade guide to Switch ’N’ Shoot: I genuinely want people to get better at the game; straight-up enjoy the game; and, ideally, play it again and again. I’m not trying to punish you just because you haven’t played anything like this before — I get it.

So please, if you can find it in your heart, play Switch ’N’ Shoot at Know-a-Guy in Murray, Kentucky. That’s the cabinet I operate through my company Wilcox Arcade, which is dedicated to providing greater access to indie arcade games in the commonwealth. This is my life’s passion, people.

And if indie arcade games are your jam in general, you may very well want to follow Wilcox Arcade on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X.

Good luck playing Switch ’N’ Shoot.