ABOUT
EARTH, 2562 A.D.
After centuries of war and suffering, peace slowly began to return to the world. Just as civilization had started to recover, however, another crisis fell upon it – an extra-terrestrial armada pillaged the earth, taking with them virtually all of the known supplies of gold. Society was plunged into chaos – financial markets experienced a recession of unparalleled proportions, electronics production ceased altogether, and people with dental fillings dared not wander out in public.
An international task force was created with the aim of recovering the gold. Scraping together what they could with the minuscule amount that had not been plundered, a shuttle was constructed that would serve justice upon the invaders. It contained a few spherical exploration pods, which would navigate the planetary surface by means of bouncing upon it.
You are responsible for piloting the pods and returning all of the gold to Earth. If this mission fails, humanity will be doomed to return to the Stone Age.
You are our only hope!
GAMEPLAY
There are two modes of play: arcade mode and casual mode. Arcade mode is scored and only allows you a limited number of lives, whilst casual mode is unscored and allows you an infinite number of lives.
Upon starting your journey, you will find yourself piloting the exploration pod on an unfamiliar planetary surface. You may use your chosen control scheme to guide the pod through the planet. The pod has inertia, so you will need to build up your speed in the direction you wish to travel.
As you explore the planet, you will find different features of the landscape, the purposes of which you will discover. To help you get started, here are a few tips: Gold can be retrieved from the flashing checkerboard areas, and no areas can harm you apart from the pitch-black tar. Bounce on that and you will find your pod engulfed by it!
At the end of each section will be a portal to another crevice of the gold store. This portal can only be entered through once all of the gold in the current crevice has been retrieved.
Bitmap Soft Enhanced Edition
Here’s the new additions to the game
- Six new levels in a separate “bonus pack”, which can be accessed via the main menu
- Spruced up presentation on some screens (Game Over, level titles, main menu)
- Bug fixes for casual mode & music player
- Some internal optimisations
- New copyright notices and publisher logos
TIPS & TECHNIQUES
- Momentum can be preserved through teleporters – flinging yourself like this is critical to success in the later stages.
- Sometimes with teleporters, you might not end up the same place twice.
- Extra pods are hidden throughout the planet, indicated by a scrolling + sign.
- The biggest gap you can cross is two blocks.
Credits
- psndcj for the Triebkraft AY player
- Sergey Bulba for Vortex Tracker II and the PT3 playback routine
- Einar Saukas for the ZX7 compression system
- Dave Hughes for providing 128k hardware testing
- Jonathan Cauldwell for his Spectrum games programming tutorial
- Claus Jahn for ZX-Paintbrush and ZX-Blockeditor
- Julián Albo for the Pasmo assembler
- Coverart: Kevin McGrorty
- Inlay Design: Darren Doyle
