From: bdoa@ukc.ac.uk (B.D.O.Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sinclair
Subject: New game , starblade (0/1)
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 95 16:23:32 GMT

  A Brand new game for the spectrum, called STARBLADE.
Me and my brother wrote this sevens years ago, but never got it
published, which is a pity because i think it was pretty good.
Anyway recently i found the old tape of it, and after having to hack
my own game, got it loaded into a spectrum emulator.  The games is a
uridium clone but with slightly more stratagy. Try it you might like
it and its free.  Email me with what you think of it.

>From  our original blurb.

The game is a scrolling shoot'em up, with the objective to destroy
all 48 zones of a network of platforms forming a huge alien space
station above the earth.

Features:-
           Many waves of animated masked sprites.
           Mothership up to 48 by 48 pixels
           48 zone each built of 8 platforms
           Flicker free graphics and scrolling.
           Background stars
           Extra weapons:
                         smart bombs
                         guided missiles
                         electrosmash
           16K of pure graphics
           all keys redefinable.

  To destroy a platform, all blastable surface objects must be
destroyed in a specific order, e.g. before a gunturret can be
destroyed, all the objects on the platform with greater priority
(your have to find out which) must be destroyed. Finally once all
the killable surface objects have been eliminated on the 8 platforms
forming a dreadnought have been killed, you may destroy the whole
zone by releasing a smart bomb while travelling at maximum speed.
  When you reach an end platform the scrolling will halt, and a
mothership or two will appear.  By means of the four arrows you may
choose which zone to go to after having destroyed the mothership.
But Beware: The zone form a complex network and you must plan your
route carefully to avoid being trapped alway from unclear zones. If
this happens your mission will fail and earth will be destroyed.

-----------

Other info.

  You begin with 10 lifes and 5 smart bombs, your need them, if
these a fault with the game its that its too damn hard. Extra life,
smart bombs and weapons can be picked up if you destroy an complete
wave of aliens. To change weapons hold down fire until your choosen
weapon starts flashing.  They was a cheat code for it, but after
seven years i can't rembember it, sorry.

Emulator info.

  Starblade has been tested succesively on the ZXAM 2.0 and spectrum
v1.7 emulators for the amiga, and is saved as a mirage format
snapshot.
  Its fast enough to be playable on an A1200 with a 28Mhz 020 or
25Mhz 030, anything less and it will crawl. PC users will have to
test it out for themselves but it should run on any good emulator.

Copyright info.
  Starblade may be freely distributable provided it is not modified.
You may distribute snapshots in other formats, or at later points in
the games. We however retain full copyright on the game.  All
donations gratefully accepted.


Barry Adams