WIP resurrection – Neon Invasion Earth.

I (annoyingly) haven’t been very productive the last couple of years, but I (also annoyingly) have several WIP’s that are very far in development, but for some reason or other has stalled.

One of these games is “Neon Invasion Earth” – a game I started working on back in 2010. Originally just the idea of a very simple circular Invaders game, but one guy really liked the idea and gave me lots of suggestions for enhancements … and so it evolved. Unfortunately, efter a while, he fell off the edge of the Earth and without his input and testing, development on it stalled and the approximately 90% complete game has been in limbo for at least 5 years. But no more – I’ve started working on it again and you can expect a release very soon. 🙂

In its new form the game will be a lot easier than originally intended. Originally you’d have to complete the first 10 levels to be able to start at level 10. Then you’d have to play until level 25 before being able to start a game there, etc. You can see what I mean from this picture.

Old way of selecting which level to start at.

But I’ve now changed it to this more classic way of doing it, so you can now start at any level you’ve reached. You still only get 3 lives but you can keep trying to complete a single level until you get it right. So it won’t be as devastatingly difficult as it originally would have, but hopefully it’ll be more fun and less frustrating.

New way of doing it. It’ll be much easier to progress this way.

Ironically enough, a week ago I jokingly wrote in my personal New Years message on Facebook, that one of my wishes for 2017 would be “no alien invasions” …and now – just a week later – I’ve decided to put out a game about aliens invading Earth. Funny how things work out sometimes. 🙂

Anyway, more about it soon, when it’s done. Stay tuned. 🙂

Vallation updated – now at version 1.1

There were a couple of bugs in the game – they were rare…but they were there and not long after the release of version 1.0 I received many messages about those bugs. Nothing like gamers to break you game, right? 😉 😀

However, after a lot of debugging and even more testing I’m fairly confident that the bugs are gone now …but I’m sure time will tell if I’m right. 😉

The link on the page has been updated. Download version 1.1 here.

I’ve only changed code in this update – not the layout of any screens or enemies. That being said – some screens could use a bit of tweaking…like the one below. I guess that despite my thorough testing it never occurred to me to enter this screen from above. If I had I would’ve known that it would most likely be the last thing you did. I’d be impressed if anyone can pass there.

You’d better come in from the bottom or you will NOT make it.

Good news though. We have found someone to distribute the game on physical cassette and we have decided to put the “normal game” (this one) on side A of the tape, but I’ll start working on an extended 128K version for the B-side, with more levels, more graphics, more enemies and some major changes to the gameplay, so I will go through all the levels (again) and make extra sure there aren’t any (almost?) impossible screens like this. More news about this in a couple of months or so.

Vallation 1.0 released

*Finally* – something new to show. 🙂

This is my latest game – it’s a new game for the ZX Spectrum and written in 100% assembler.
It’s a remake of a C64 game from 2013 by Jason Kelk (see more information on the games page).

In the game you’re flying your little ship through an enemy base (read: maze) and trying to escape and avoid being killed in the process. The base consists of 4 levels and a total of 101 screens. So, basically it’s a Cybernoid clone. 😉

The plan from here is to make a very limited run of physical cassettes and I will post more once I have more details about that.

Show me some love if you like it and send me a mail at r_e_t_r_o_h_e_a_d@tardis.dk (remove the underscores).

Enjoy. 

Dingo v1.3 released for download.

I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t made the improved version of Dingo for the Spectrum available for download yet, and as I’ve recently ceased communication with the artist (again) I thought it was a good time to put it online.

The changes in the 2015 version (version 1.3) are;

  • A much improved control method. This was the bug-bear for many people with the original release, but it’s now MUCH better.
  • Enemy pre-spawn warning – so you can see where the Dingos are about to appear and move out the way.
  • Bonus fruit stays on screen – It was easy to forget which was the bonus fruit during the game so the current bonus fruit is now displayed in the status area.
  • A new loading screen.
  • A couple of bugfixes.

Grab it – it’s free. Play it using an emulator or make your own cassettes and play as much as your heart desires. Just click the picture and click the download icon on the gamepage.