Nice try, but it fell short.
This would have been an interesting new spin on an old classic if it hadn't been for the fact that it doesn't play like the original Asteroids. The problem is, I'm so used to the old Asteroids that this clone feels a bit awkward to play. The first problem is the controls, in the original Asteroids, the ship didn't always move in the direction it was facing. In this game it does, and it's throwing me off. I'm thankful that you can brake by pressing the down key. My second gripe is that there isn't any levels in this game. The ASCIIroids keep respawning and when they fly off the screen they're gone. In the original, you had a finite number of Asteroids that would appear on the opposite edge of the screen, just like the ship, and if you destroyed them all you'd advance to the next level which had more Asteroids. My third and final complaint is that this ASCII ship is too big, either I think you should make the ship smaller or the screen bigger, preferably the former.
However many flaws this game had, it still plays alright, but anyone who has played the original might feel a bit bewildered by all the liberties that were taken with this game. I also admire the thought behind, making Asteroids with ASCII graphics is a funny idea. But I think if you made it play more like the original this would have been a better clone than it is now.