Back when I was in college (circa the early 1990s), I had a Mac, and on that Mac was a screensaver, with many different options/choices to choose from. One of them was a shmup called Lunatic Fringe.
Anybody else remember this non-linear game? No end-of-screen borders, with increasing difficulty as you cleared out levels of enemies, and various power-ups and repair icons (these the game called "yummies") to be grabbed along the way.
The game's difficulty really ramped up around the seventh level, I think, when the Pincers came out to play, which were lightning fast enemies that made a beeline for your craft, and would just poke you until either you were dead, or they were.
I whiled away many, many hours playing this game both in black and white and in color (color was preferred, obviously), and the best feeling in the world was when you were flying completely out of control at full speed (when you got damaged, your abilities to fly, aim, and such were hampered as well...it made the game quite fun), being chased by pincers, and then, just as you're about to die, you happened to grab (just by luck, mind you), an INSTANT SHIP REPAIR yummy, which then completely restored your shield, aim, etc. and you'd be back in, destroying said pincers with impunity. Awesome feeling, that.
Without grabbing a repair icon, your ship would slowly, slowly regenerate, but you were best served trying to find yummies to help you survive.
I miss this game. Anyone else remember it fondly, as I do?