Invaders Storm

Temos uma noticia maravilhosa para dar. Marco Paulo Carrasco, ele mesmo da dupla Marco & Tito, responsável por jogos como Aliene Evolution e tantos outros, muito que foram preservados por Planeta Sinclair, está de volte às lides do ZX Spectrum. Para já apenas com um teste. Mas que teste...

Invasion Storm é um shoot'em'up inspirado em Space Invaders e foi desenvolvido num tiro. Senão vejam a mensagem do Marco, que deixamos abaixo.

This weekend I ended up going back to the 1980s and to the ZX Spectrum.

It brought back memories of a very different time with my old friend Rui Tito. Programming meant patience, repetition, and a lot of trial and error. I remembered the long hours spent working on Alien Evolution ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVUme7zpMw8 ), chasing bugs that made no sense, watching the screen crash, resetting the machine, and starting again. It was frustrating at times, but also strangely addictive.

On Saturday I started playing with ZX Spectrum emulators, almost just to see what would happen. I began with BASIC to check if any of it was still there. To my surprise, the old habits came back quite naturally. The way of structuring things, the logic, even some of the small details I thought I had almost completely forgotten.

After that I moved on to a few small routines in assembly. That familiar feeling returned as well, the challenge of making things more efficient and the satisfaction when something finally worked as intended.

I had forgotten how much joy there is in seeing a simple sprite move on the screen in assembler. First in BASIC, a bit rough and slow, and then in assembly, smoother (pixel by pixel) and vert fast. It still feels a bit like bringing something to life.

Back then there was no internet. No quick searches, no tutorials, no communities or AI to ask for help. Everything had to be figured out step by step, talking with Tito and very often making mistakes. Today everything is faster and more accessible, and that is a good thing, but the process feels a bit different.

At some point I thought it would be interesting to make the sprite shoot. Then it felt natural to add an enemy. One idea led to another, just like it used to.

Ou seja, preparem-se, pois parece que vêm ai coisas muito boas. Mas enquanto não vemos os novos trabalhos do Marco, podem vir aqui jogar Invaders Storm. Desafiamo-vos a conseguirem passar ao terceiro nível...