In Invasion of the Emerald Saucers, you aim to take on the Emerald Saucers and protect your pods from enemy attack. Each pod you collect nets you an increasing bonus, and any destroyed by a saucer resets it.
How long can you last? How high a score can you get? Can you save our pods?
Invasion of the Emerald Saucers is an arcade-style game taking inspiration from Asteroids/Space War/Computer Space written entirely in NextBASIC (2.07L) for the ZX Spectrum Next (and clone systems like the N-Go). It also serves as a test bed project for me in learning developing with the Next hardware, as well as with NextBASIC.
Features
* Supports both Keyboard and Mega Drive/Genesis gamepad controls
* Animated Sprites
* Simple Particle Effects
* Plenty of AY Sound Effects
Credits
* Game Design, Programming, Sprites, Backgrounds, Sound Effects by robc
* Explosion & Hyperspace Sprites by ansimuz
* Precinct90 font by DamienG
Don't Have a Spectrum Next?
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If you don't have access to an actual Spectrum Next (which is understandable), then there are other ways to play Invasion of the Emerald Saucers.
For Windows users, setting up HDFM-Gooey will allow you to auto-install and configure the CSpect (
https://dailly.blogspot.com/) emulator, and let you copy the game files onto its virtual SD card. The following video tutorial covers that process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAzt_wMc-WQ
For those on macOS or Linux, the CSpect emulator can also be used, though you'll need to use hdfmonkey (
https://github.com/gasman/hdfmonkey) from the command-line to copy files on to the virtual SD card.
In addition, you can play it on other FPGA systems with Spectrum Next cores like MiSTer.
Playing the Game
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To play Invasion of the Emerald Saucers, you'll need to unzip the archive and copy it onto the SD Card of your Spectrum Next (or alternate device).
Once you've done that, power it up, and browse to the directory where it sits and run the EmeraldSaucers.bas program. This will automatically load and start the game!
If you wish to play using a Mega Drive/Genesis controller, ensure you've set the mapping for JOY1 to MD1 using the NMI menu (which you access with the Yellow button on your Next).