Ellipsetron is an arcade-style game inspired by Tempest and Gyruss.

In Ellipsetron, you control a ship and fight against endless hordes of enemies. The catch here is that you are not allowed to move freely. Instead, your ship's movement is restricted by two elliptical orbits. When your ship is located on the first orbit, it can shoot towards the center of the screen, and when it is located on the second orbit, it can shoot outwards from the center of the screen, killing enemies situated behind. This movement restriction combined with specific enemy actions helps create a unique game dynamic.

To survive, you must continuously move, change orbits in response to threats. You will also need to collect power-ups and bonus weapons to assist your mission. To restore health, you will need to perform long "killstreak" chains as well as using bombs to clear the field when surrounded by enemies.

The game has four game-modes:

Progression - fight against ten enemy waves, each one harder than previous
Rush - endless fast-paced game on the hardest difficulty
Overpopulation - destroy countless hordes of slow enemies
Evasion - try to evade threats without guns, explode one bomb in 20 seconds, use powerups to survive
Other features:

4 bonus weapons
4 powerups
11 enemy types
gamepad and keyboard support
colorful neon-style graphics
optional "autofire" mode