Galaxians & Gloops

ZX Computing

Nick Pearce

THE ZX81 SOFT SELECTION Nick Pearce looks at some new releases for the ZX81. GALAXIANS AND GLOOPS Quicksilva Quicksilva have produced an excellent version of Galaxians for the ZX81. The action is fast and responsive, and it is a pleasure to play. Two types of galaxians move, in formation, across the top of the screen, and swoop down attacking your base. You have three lives available, while the speed, firing-rate and the number of swooping Galaxians are adjustable by the player. Points are scored, in the usual fashion, by blasting the Galaxians as they fly. However, more points can be scored if the Galaxians are hit as they swoop down from the top of the screen. Scoring is displayed on the screen, and at the end of each game, your score is entered into a league table which can cater for up to 1 5 games/players. The first batch of swooping Galaxians are particularly good at searching-out and destroying your base, and some deft manouvreing is required to avoid their attack. Thereafter the battle is fierce but a high score can be achieved by the experienced player. If it becomes too easy, the level of difficulty can be soon increased. GLOOPS This cassette also contains Gloops, a version of the arcade type maze game. You move your 'Gobbler' eating up food pills which are worth about 10 points each. The 'Ghosts' will eat you if they catch you. If you can reach one of the power pills in the maze, you take your revenge for a short while and add 100 points to your score if you can catch a ghost. There are 10 different mazes to choose from, and the speed is selectable in 10 discrete steps. Action is responsive, making Gloops a first-class version of this popular game. Now for the bad points! Although the instructions state that both Galaxians and Gloop auto-run upon loading, the review copy I had did not. To execute the program, I had to enter in immediate-mode, GOTO 1. This being said, both are impressive machine code games, and overall the cassette is a very reasonable buy. Galaxians costs £4.95, and Quicksilva Ltd. is at [redacted].

Sinclair User

PICK OF THE PAC Space and maze madness on the ZX-81 High Resolution Graphics Memory: 16K Price: £5.95 Galaxians Memory: 16K Price: £3.95 Gloops Memory: 16K Price: £3.95 Damper Memory: 16K Price: £3.95 Glooper Memory: 16K Price: £3.95 Gilbert Factor: 7 One of the major disadvantages of the ZX-81 is that the graphics, if you can call them that, are very low in resolution, being made up of black blocks which can be PRINTed or POKEd on to the screen. Computer Rentals Ltd has circumvented the problem by producing a 16K high-resolution package which will give a screen display on a grid of 192 X 256 pixels. It can be POKEd into action from a Basic program. All the usual Spectrum graphics are available, in black-and-white format, including circles, line and arcs. It is also possible to make your own user-defined graphics of objeCts such as space invaders, pac-men, or even foreign alphabets. Although the utility can produce some incredible pictures, there are disadvantages. If you intend to draw complex designs using mathematical formulae which include sine and cosine, you will find that the computer takes about 20 minutes to complete the graphics in FAST mode. You will have to tolerate the grey screen for a considerable time. It does not take quite so long to draw a few lines and circles but it certainly takes longer than its big brother, the Spectrum. One of the major shortcomings of the package is the pocket-sized manual which attempts to explain all the features of the utility in a short space. The booklet seems to have been written by a programmer, or by a person who has taken for granted that the user will know about the computer and its memory map. Such an assumption is dangerous and leaves new users rushing for books on machine code or, at least, a book on POKEing. High-Resolution Graphics can be obtained from most branches of John Menzies and W H Smith. Although Quicksilva is not producing new ZX-81 arcade games, the company still has some top-ranking games in its range. Galaxians and Gloops are two games on one cassette, one of them an old arcade favourite and the other an old favourite under a new name. Galaxians involves a flock of alien birds which take turns to swoop down the screen at your laser base and fire death-dealing energy bolts. The screen display is not so awe-inspiring as other versions of the game. For inStance, the birds do not swoop with wings at an angle - they just drop down, like Vs, from their positions in the flock. The game is difficult to play, even though you can alter the way in which the aliens attack. It is possible to change the number of Galaxians which swoop at you and also the number of aliens. You can also change the number of salvos which are fired at you. Even at the lowest settings the game can become irritatingly difficult and addictive. At the highest level only the best arcade player will survive for any length of time. The other game on the cassette is Gloops. It is difficult to know why Quicksilva decided to use that name but the program is an average version of Pac-man. The only differences between Gloops and the original Pac-man is that the maze layout can be changed by the player and the speed of the ghosts can also be set. Unfortunately the instructions are vague as to the scale at which the speed is set, so if you type zero the ghosts will react quickly and if you type nine the ghosts will be slow. Gloops is one of the fastest versions of Pac-man on the ZX-81, even if it is not the best graphically. It can be obtained from Quicksilva or from W H Smith. Another Quicksilva double-game cassette is Damper and Glooper, both for the 16K machine. Damper is a game in which you take the part of a droid who must turn off the power on a grid before the leeches damage the power cables. Your character travels round the power lines and when you have been around the square, that square is filled and the power will be turned off. To reach the next level you must turn off the power in all the squares. By chasing round the squares you can attack the leeches. If, on the other hand, you are touched by one of them they will electrocute you and a life will be lost. The game does not need high-resolution graphics to be effective as it uses thick lines on the screen. The special effects when your damper is electrocuted give the game a professional finish. Glooper is another version of Pac-man which looks like a car, and the ghosts, which look like little racing cars, chase after it. As usual, the aim is to evade the ghosts and eat the power pills. Glooper is more innovative and attractive as a version of Pac-man than Gloops. It uses the whole screen to display the maze, rather than just a portion in the middle. The two games look sufficiently different from each other to justify a company putting both in its range but the concepts are too close for comfort. All Quicksilva ZX-81 games are worth buying, although they lack features which would have been helpful. For instance, it might have been a good idea to put in an option to redefine what can be used during play on all the games. If that had been the case the games would have been easier to play, by left- and right-handed people, and also much more user-friendly.

Sinclair User

GETTING THE MUNCHEES A Munchee is a Pacman-like creature which wanders around a maze in the new Quicksilva game, Munchees, for the 16K ZX-81. The game is slightly different from the usual Pacman mould because you can choose with how many ghosts you want to play. The number of ghosts does not matter much, as they are not very intelligent. Unless you are only two centimetres away from a ghost it does not want to know about you and in some cases it does not seem to know you exist. The keyboard layout is difficult, as only three of the cursor keys are used and the keys are grouped into UP and DOWN and LEFT and RIGHT. Once you are used to that, however, the game is very addictive. The graphics of Munchees equal some games which are available commercially for the Spectrum. It is, on the whole, the best Pacman-type game we have seen for the 16K ZX-81. Quicksilva also has a good version of the popular arcade game Galaxians. The game is fast - perhaps too fast - and it is almost impossible to stay alive very long. High scores reaching the thousands are possible and a high score table is included in the program to record the names of those who are most adept at the game. Also included on the Galaxians tape is another maze game, Gloops. Two games on the one cassette is good value for money. Both are for the 16K ZX-81. Munchees and Galaxians are available from Quicksilva, Department SU, [redacted]. Galaxians costs £4.95 and Munchees £3.95.

ZX Computing

Nick Pearce

THE '81 SOFT SELECTION Nick Pearce levels his critical eye at some of the latest software packages for the ZX81. GALAXIANS AND GLOOPS - QUICKSILVA Quicksilva have produced an excellent game of Galaxians for the ZX81. The action is fast and responsive and it is a pleasure to play. Two types of Galaxian move in formation across the top of the screen, and swoop down attacking your base. You have three lives and the speed, firing rate and the number of swooping Galaxians are adjustable by the player. You get more points for hitting Galaxians as they swoop down rather than those in formation. Scoring is displayed on the screen, and at the end of each game your score is entered onto a league table which can cater for up to 15 games/players. The first batch of swooping Galaxians are particularly good at searching out and destroying your base, and some deft manoeuvering is required to avoid their attack. Thereafter the battle is fierce but a high score can be achieved by the experienced player. If it becomes too easy, the level of difficulty can easily be increased. A fast-moving and impressive machine code game. Nicely boxed and with Gloops - a maze game on the B side of this cassette, it is reasonable value for money. Quicksilva have recently taken on the marketing of Pixel games. The Pixel games have been re-packaged by Quicksilva and have been given attractive covers featuring science fiction artwork. Trader and Subspace Striker are two such games. TRADER Trader is a three-part space adventure in which you travel round a galaxy of six planets trading with the inhabitants. The object of the game is to make a fat profit on the way whilst avoiding the many and varied pitfalls you will encounter. The graphic displays with this game are very good indeed. There is a short interactive-type game within each of the three parts of this adventure, and a few decisions have to be made - the wares to buy and at what price you sell them, for example. But to a large extent this game moves along at a relaxed pace through the various screen displays with only a little input necessary from the player. One problem is that each of the three parts of the adventure have to be LOADed separately - the variables are held in a secure memory space to be carried forward to the next part to make a continuous game. The first time I played the complete game took about one hour, but altogether some 20 minutes were spent waiting - impatiently - for the next successive part to LOAD. A game in a number of parts to overcome the limitations of even 16K of RAM (which is soon filled by adventures of this sort) is a good idea, but is more suited to a computer system with fast access disc storage. The slow ZX81 cassette based system makes patience an essential prerequisite - perhaps one of the 'fastload' programs on the market could be used with Trader to good effect. The cassette comes attractively packaged in a box with a comprehensive booklet describing the background to the game and including a Trader story. A good idea, excellent screen displays, and a game to sit back and enjoy. Perhaps a little overpriced at just under £10. SUBSPACE STRIKER Subspace Striker is a more interactive game, but a lot of time is still spent watching the screen displays too much maybe for the trigger happy arcade game enthusiast itching to shoot down some federation ships with antimat torpedoes. The graphics are certainly very good; each of the four types of ship in the federation fleet, and your own ship Swordfish - is displayed in great detail on the screen at the appropriate time. The interactive part of the game involves targetting a federation ship in your gun sights and then blasting it from the sky, after which you quickly dive back into the safety of deep space to await the next federation ship to pass. You have ten antimat torpedoes in each game, and there is an element of danger as the federation fleet also has weapons. Not a game to get the adrenalin really flowing too much time is spent watching the screen displays for that - but nevertheless an absorbing game which is good fun to play. The second game on this cassette is Zor, Battle of the Robots. Graphics are a feature of this Pixel game too. In this one, you are on a remote and barren planet and must uphold Earth's honour and supremacy in a battle with a Champion of Zor. You start equally matched with your opponent with 2,500 MJ of energy, which can be used as a weapon or shield. From then it's up to you to use your energy in the best possible way to overcome your adversary - and good luck. The extensive use of graphics in each game on this cassette means that both take up nearly all 16K of memory, and both take a long time to LOAD. The programs are preceded by a short loading test which can be used to set optimum volume/tone settings on your recorder. I had no problem loading either game. Quicksilva is at [redacted]. The cassettes reviewed above are priced as follows: Galaxians + Gloops £4.95 Trader £9.95 Subspace Striker + Zor £3.95

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

WATCH OUT THERE'S A MINE ABOUT! You'll have to watch where you are treading in Quicksilva's latest game. Mined Out challenges you to get safely across a field which is riddled with enemy mines. Put one foot in the wrong place and you'll be blown to bits. To aid you in this perilous jaunt you are given a mine detector and some sale areas around the edges of the mine field where you can walk unharmed. To add interest the fields are inhabited by a couple of hostile creatures: bugs and mine spreaders. Watch your step! Mined Out is for the 48K Spectrum only and is in the shops now at £4.95. ZX81 owners have also been included in this months new releases from Quicksilva with three 16K games based on well known arcade money spinners. Kroka Crawla is a version of Frogger, Munchies is a maze gobbling game similar to Pacman, and there is also a Galaxians with an extra bonus game on the same tape called Gloops. Kroka Crawla and Munchies will sell for £3.95 and Galaxians is a little dearer at £4.95.