Genre: Arcade: Smart arse action
You can just about make out the drawing through the shimmering moire pattern, and when you press caps shift to start the game it’s possible to make out a few sprites (which can naturally be controlled with the keys WASD) but that’s about it. Clearly there is some trickery going on here, this game is specially formulated to only be playable on a real spectrum connected to a TV. For those blessed with this set up I recommend giving it a go (128k only, paging must be enabled), and you will see this:
By Guesser, music by Gasman
DISCLAIMER: GAME FEATURES FLICKERING IMAGES. IF YOU THINK THIS WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS CLOSE YOUR EYES WHILE PLAYING.
DISCLAIMER: GAME FEATURES FLICKERING IMAGES. IF YOU THINK THIS WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS CLOSE YOUR EYES WHILE PLAYING.
Any CSS or WoS regular will know this entry has been a long
time coming, with work on the engine predating this years competition. Guesser started cranking up his hype machine
earlier this year by announcing…”THEY’RE COMING”, well now finally they’re here – and what a formidable foe the Chromatrons
prove to be.
Guesser points out that the purpose of the game is not
necessarily to be fun (glad to hear it!)
but to “wind up emulator authors”. Load
Chromatrons up in any emulator and you’ll see what he means, you can hear
Gasman’s nifty AY music but this is what you’ll see:
You can just about make out the drawing through the shimmering moire pattern, and when you press caps shift to start the game it’s possible to make out a few sprites (which can naturally be controlled with the keys WASD) but that’s about it. Clearly there is some trickery going on here, this game is specially formulated to only be playable on a real spectrum connected to a TV. For those blessed with this set up I recommend giving it a go (128k only, paging must be enabled), and you will see this:
I didn’t expect that. I thought it would still be a grey mess, just
a clearer grey mess. I’ll leave it to the hardware people to
explain the technical aspects of it, but I can confirm that the attributes are set to black on white, not
magenta on cyan. Which finally brings us onto the game itself,
while you can just see the sprites on an emulator what you can’t see is the
scrolling landscape.
2 pics provided by p13z
You must pilot your spacecraft (forever it seems, there is
no endgame here) while being pursued by the deadly Chromatrons. Basically avoid the ever increasing numbers
of aliens and the walls. The sprites
move in character steps and the scrolling landscape is (I think) attribute based.
The further you go the higher the score, a formula many of us love and
will find quite addictive. It’s also a
great feature that your shields build up after a loss, so all is not lost if
you screw up. Guesser (or his beta
tester) start the Hi Score challenge at 1923.
So this game displays a great knowledge of the hardware and
coding skill (done in assembly), but is it crap? Well the fact I’ve just loaded it up again on
tape to try and beat my own hi score of 1313 suggests not, but the WASD keys
might just be enough to save it…
Thankyou Guesser!
