Lunar surface shooter

slimjim · Post by **slimjim** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 3:39 pm

Can you stand another 'name that game'?

This one I remember as having very attractive, smooth graphics - quite a slick, if a simple game. I really only have a vague memory of it - but you had to control some sort of missile turret, or turrets, on a lunar surface, or some kind of desolate planet surface. I have a faint recollection that a transparent dome of some kind was involved.

It was a BBC Micro game; I played it on my Model B.

Any ideas .. ?

Thanks!

MoistMog · Post by **MoistMog** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:54 pm

Sounds a bit like Missile Control (or was it Missile Command?) but then that had cities you had to defend....?

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:09 pm

Not an exact match but perhaps Gorf ? Has a dome anyway.

BeebInC · Post by **BeebInC** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 3:08 pm

Moon patrol?

jon28 · Post by **jon28** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:08 pm

Missile Command didn't have a dome, I don't recall a BBC version either.

Gorf did indeed have a force field that looked like a dome in the first level, but this wasn't available as a BBC game either as far as I'm aware.

What kind of game was it?

A shoot-em up?

Fixed screen or scolling?

Jon.

slimjim · Post by **slimjim** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:48 pm

Definitely wasn't a missile comamnd type game. I can't for the life of me remember what you were supposed to shoot at, either, but it was a shoot-em-up of sorts.

You know, I'm going to have to do the decent thing and dig out my Model B. I might have it on a disk somewhere.

Many thanks again for the replies, everyone.

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:56 pm

jon28 wrote:
Gorf did indeed have a force field that looked like a dome in the first level, but this wasn't available as a BBC game either as far as I'm aware.

I've just played it on the emulator

Go to main page, type gorf into search, made by DoctorSoft.

slimjim · Post by **slimjim** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 5:24 pm

OK, dug out the Model B and I'm pretty sure I found it on an old floppy: Martian Attack. It's somehow different from what I remember, but it really must be the one; the old grey cells are playing tricks. The "glass dome" is a sort of force-field.

Delighted to see that it's available for download here, too. It's a remarkably smooth and responsive game for 1983.

I had a look through my floppies and was amazed to find all sorts of stuff I'd forgotten .. a LISP compiler, an ISO Pascal compiler, loads of terminal emulation software. Back in 1985/86, in the first year of my Computer Science degree, I used to do my Pascal assignments at home on my Beeb, and upload them to a minicomputer at Teesside Poly using a modem and a terminal emulator package. It used to take a couple of minutes to send the text, as I remember.

Thanks again!

jon28 · Post by **jon28** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 10:17 pm

I've just played it on the emulator Very Happy Go to main page, type gorf into search, made by DoctorSoft.

Well I didn't remember that....

I just had a go....not one of the best arcade conversions, surprising as I don't recall the arcade version being that brill (other than the sampled speech).

Its amazing how software companies could get away with such blatant copyright infringement back in the 1980's. Something like this or any of the other blatant arcade rip-offs nowadays would result in a court case on the spot.

Jon.

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 7:19 am

How do we know they didn't pay for a license ?

Moist_Mog · Post by **Moist_Mog** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 8:42 am

...definitely had a BBC version. And here it is on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Missile-Control-B ... dZViewItem

Think you're right about the dome thing though.

jon28 · Post by **jon28** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 2:47 pm

How do we know they didn't pay for a license ?

You are right, maybe they did pay for a license. I doubt it though.

In general no one was paying license fees, I think Elite were one of the first to start licensing along with Ocean (and Imagine).

I don't recall Acornsoft, Micro Power or Superior getting licenses for any of their arcade conversions - maybe Superior did towards the end. They just wouldn't get away with it nowadays especially as most of them were so blatant.

Its also amazing that making somewhat minor changes to games made the copyright holders happy - wasn't Snapper changed for copyright reasons?

Jon.

slimjim · Post by **slimjim** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 4:58 pm

jon28 wrote:Its also amazing that making somewhat minor changes to games made the copyright holders happy - wasn't Snapper changed for copyright reasons?

It was, yes. They changed the shape of the 'pacman' character for one thing (can't remember if there were other changes). I have both versions somewhere in my 5 1/4" floppy stash.

I think that Acornsoft's Defender was simply retitled 'Planetoid', an even more minor change.

Jeremy Grayson · Post by **Jeremy Grayson** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:29 pm

slimjim wrote:OK, dug out the Model B and I'm pretty sure I found it on an old floppy: Martian Attack. It's somehow different from what I remember, but it really must be the one; the old grey cells are playing tricks. The "glass dome" is a sort of force-field.

Delighted to see that it's available for download here, too. It's a remarkably smooth and responsive game for 1983.

This was an early effort by the late Jeremy C Smith, later to write Thrust and co-write Exile. I first came across it on Micropower Magic vol. 1, although it had clearly been around for some years before that.

Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)
[/i]

BeebInC · Post by **BeebInC** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 11:15 pm

I seem to remember , killing the "Deathstar", and getting the "Sinistar has been destroyed" message - seems they forgot to change that one lol

stardot.org.uk

Lunar surface shooter

Lunar surface shooter

Hmm.....

Missile Control...

Deathstar