ALIEN ANNIHILATION (ZX Spectrum Next)
A downloadable game
Where in space they came from, we will never know. All we know is that their bombardment of spinning bombs aimed straight at our cities is a sign of their goal to annihilate the human race.
Alien Annihilation is a classic arcade game inspired by the classic Missile Command, written entirely in NextBASIC (2.07k) for the ZX Spectrum Next.
GAME FEATURES
- High score
- Animated sprite graphics
- AY sound effects
- Supports Mouse, Keyboard and Joystick
- Increasing difficulty per level
FOR THE DEVELOPER NERDS
- A 40 page code breakdown document that runs over the code and explains how it works.
Play it as-is, look at the coding and play with it for some learning fun, even edit the code and graphics to make it your own! Enjoy.
Download
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Comments
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First of all my mouse is fine on the ks2 running the current state of the game. And its a lot of fun! But I do noticed a little issue. I was rewarded an extra city while already having 6 cities. After my 6 cities then were wiped I could continue the game with a ghost city probably sitting outside of view. Could basicly run the game forever, score points forever as the mystery city you can't see, also can't be destroyed :)
Thanks for the heads up. And for the comments - glad to hear you are enjoying it!
Hmmm, not sure why that should happen... It only has an array of 6 cities. lol! Must be a counter value issue. This was written in NextBasic 2.07 - I wonder if the updated 2.08 has changed something in NextBasic that is causing an issue? I'll take a peek when I get time... :)
Alternatively there's a code breakdown 'How the game works' PDF if you wanted to take a peek at the Basic code and mess around. Think of it as the bonus 'puzzle game' where you have to find and fix a bug... lol! :D
Why developers doesn´t release games in nex file ?? Why ??
The nex format is for compiled software. The ones I produce are in NextBasic (.bas format).
I had a couple of reasons for creating BASIC software. One was a challenge to see whether the Basic and hardware features on the Next could perform well enough to produce decent games without resorting to machine code.
The second was because I wanted to also offer them as free code for people to play with, learn from or just enjoy the chance to look at how the game works (which is why I write the pdf guides). It brings back memories of the 80's era of home computing that I grew up in (but now on a *modern* 8-bit system)
And of course, because its just a lot of fun to write games... :)
Lovely game, but FYI I also get the same error mentioned when I try to start by clicking on the mouse. A brilliant effort though and a lot of fun to see BASIC games on a ZX Spectrum that are actually playable and engaging :)
Thanks! :D
I wonder if the mouse issue is a firmware/os thing. I did run into mouse issues and crashes with NextDAW using previous 2.07 versions. (I think it was 2.07g)
What version are you running? Be good to be able to pinpoint the reason as I am sure there will be others run into it...
Hi, thanks for responding! I'm using the latest release (22.09) which uses 2.07k. Feel free to ping me over email at ptsochantaris at gmail and I'll be happy to try and debug, I'm just not very familiar with Next basic or I would have given it a go myself. I'm using an N-Go board for what it's worth, and the mouse is connected to the port via USB -> PS2 converter -> Mouse/keyboard splitter -> N-Go. Hope this helps!
Ah, like l-o-l, the main thing I see here is that you're both running N-Go boards. Wonder if the mouse driver is not talking with the N-Go port in the same way.
For starting the game, I read the actual port directly so obviously that works. The mouse driver just was a faster and more efficient way to work with the mouse.
Thanks for the feedback. I will go pester some Next nerds and see if anybody else has run into this... 😁
As I just posted to l-o-l, a good test to see if its a driver thing is to load the basic demo for the mouse. Its under the /demos/mouse folder
Hi Kev - I get an error "J Invalid I/O device, 403:1" when I start the game using a PS2 mouse. Still a very good game with a joystick.
Thanks :)
That's strange. I tested it on both Cspect and the Next itself. I also tested two mice on the Next. one was an actual ball-based ps/2 mouse, the other a usb mouse using a usb/ps2 adapter.
What os are you running? I have been using 2.07k (latest official distro) on both cspect and next.
Just curious to see if can pinpoint whether its a particular os/firmware or something else...
Thanks for the response Kev. Im running 2.07k on an N-Go with a ps2 optical mouse. Just for reference, the mouse works with Xeno brigade and Next War. They run form the .nex extension in case that makes a diference from running from .bas.
Hmmm, wonder if there's a difference with the N-Go and Next for that particular driver? I am using the Next mouse driver that comes with 2.07k...
It is possible those games are reading the Kempston ports and doing their own thing - I originally did that in basic (I do use it on the title screen to read the mouse button) but the mouse driver was more efficient, faster and, eh accurate 😂
Thanks for the heads up on that.
Actually, a good test to see if its a driver thing is to load the basic demo for the mouse. Its under the /demos/mouse folder
Ah, I wonder - are you running the game from a partitioned sd card? (ie. you have an extra drive (like D:))
If so, the problem is that the game assumes its running from the system drive. I went and updated the game download here - essentially just adding the C drive letter to the file path used for the driver, so it should load the driver properly.
Brilliant as always, showing off what the NEXT can do in Basic. Videos to spread the word coming soon... I don't get the name though..lol?? Hehe