SPACE LORDS

(c) 2012 P1X3L.net

An action-packed party game in space for up to 4 players.

Code: ALeX
Graphics: Retrofan
Music: Taxim

Four Space Lords battle for supremacy in their galaxy. Everyone has a space station on the edge of the great spiral nebula. In order to protect their own stations the lords try to move their shields to reflect the glowing plasma balls which they hurl against each other. If the station is hit despite resistance individual segments will burn until it eventually provides no protection for the Lord. If a Space Lord is then hit by a plasma ball which got through the station he loses a life. The game runs until a single lord remains, who thus receives the golden crown of the galaxy.


Controls:

In order to give as many players the opportunity to participate, SPACE LORDS supports a large number of different controllers. The game is optimized for paddle (tennis) controller from Atari and Commodore. As 2 controllers fit into a single port it's always possible to play with 4 players simultaneously without additional adapters. 

However, if there are no (or too few) paddle controllers present, you can also use joysticks (acceleration of the shield by fire button), mice 1351 from Commodore and even Amiga mice. To complete it a player can also use the keyboard to control his shield and also the CGA / Protovision 4-player adapter is supported (for 2 more joysticks or Amiga mice). 

Keys:
Keyboard Player: [ , ] = left [ / ] = right [ C= ] = action

During the game: [ RUN/STOP ] or [ Q ] = pause on/off
Title screen: [ RUN/STOP ] or [ Q ] = show/hide highscore list
Always: press longer [ RUN/STOP ] or [ Q ] = game reset

If there are not enough players available the other Space Lords are controlled by AI (artificial intelligence), so there are always four active opponents playing.

Players with paddle controllers at one of the top two screen positions may change the direction of their shield with the fire button, because some players with a reverse rotation at the top cope better. If the direction is changed a small rotating arrow icon (see above) appears next to the space station. The direction can be changed at any time during the game, but there is a time barrier of a few seconds, in order to suppress rapid, tactical jumps.


Start:

To start the game, the first player must press the fire button of their input device and move the controller in any direction. This action is needed by the game to recognize the used input device automatically. The other players do the same, to join the game. The first player will be assigned to the lower left space station, the other players are placed counterclockwise to the space station. In contrast to the respective positions, the Space Lords are assigned by random. The number of the control port and a symbol of the detected controller (paddle, joystick, keyboard or mouse) is displayed for each player in their corner. There is a microchip symbol for AI controlled Lords.

After the controller detection and alien assignment each player is presented with a terminal in their corner which gives them the ability to replace the default alien name (ARC, PEX, WOR and XYM) with a custom three letter initial. To finish the name input press the OK check mark in the lower right corner of the virtual keyboard.

After name entry, the first player is presented with three possible game options to select from:

SCORE HIGH: 3 game rounds. After each completed round, a bronze, a silver and a gold crown will be distributed. Finally, the crown and the survived time are evaluated and awarded an overall winner on the podium. The round display is in the form of 3 rings on the left side. Only in this variant, points are scored and the highscore is stored.

LIVE LONG: Each player has 3 lives (which are shown near the border as hearts). If a Space Lord lost a life it's taken off and his space station rebuilt, while the other players continue to play without interruption. If you have used up all 3 lives, you're ruled out. Until all players have lost (except the last) their lives, the game is over. The place on the podium shows how long a player has survived, compared to its rivals.

PLAY ONCE: Only one round with the subsequent ceremony (no points). Optimal for quick games or a competition for many players by knockout system.


How to play:

The game begins when all inputs are complete. In the center of the spiral nebula appears a transport aircraft which yields a plasma ball. Players must try to deflect the ball with their shields so that it does not hit their own space station and is instead hurled toward a possible opponent (changing the rebound angle by varying the position of the shield to the ball). Plasma balls bounce off the shields, from the space stations (after generating a loss) and from field-edges.

If a plasma ball hits a space station the segment touched burns and the ball bounces off. In this situation you should make sure that you do not cover the path with your shield because otherwise the ball immediately bounces off the shield back to the station and thus increases the damage quickly.

If the plasma ball causes no harm for some time it will be accelerated. The speed is reduced if it hits a space station. After some time additional plasma balls are put into play. These are, as the first ball, carried by a cargo spacecraft from the center of the spiral nebula into play. The new plasma ball only begins to fly if triggered by another ball flying very close by, the spacecraft flies away when a timer expires. Up to 4 plasma ball will be in the game - a single ball will disappear when it hits a Space Lord.


End of game:

The game ends when only one player (after one or three rounds) is alive. The stations will be restored and in the middle a winner's podium will be displayed. Here the players are awarded with bronze crown (3rd place), silver crown (2nd place) and gold crown (winner).

Round end with warp mode:
When at the end of a round there are only AI controlled Space Lords active, it will be switched into warp mode to finish the game as quickly as possible and yet to determine ranking. The space stations will no longer bounce the plasma balls off and they are launched much faster.


Scoring:

In the game mode SCORE HIGH the gold crown is worth 3,000 points, the silver crown brings 1,500 points and the bronze crown 750 points. In addition, depending on total time a player is in the game about 2,000 points are distributed to all Space Lords, so when there is a tie due to crowns this acts as a tie breaker, declaring the player who lasted longest in the game as the winner.

In the modes LIVE LONG and PLAY ONCE the player who has survived the longest wins and thus is awarded the gold crown. The other players get their places according to their crowns, points are not awarded.


Highscore List:

The high score list saves the top 8 places, initial and score. AI-controlled Space Lords will not be considered.

Save and load highscore list (.prg version):
The highscore list will be automatically saved to current disk drive. The filename is "SPACELORDS.HI". To reset the list simply delete the file.

Save and load highscore list (cartidge):
The highscore list can be saved to disk (drive 8). It's only saved when there is already an highscore file. So to start the saving you have to create a file with the correct name manually. To do so type in C64 Basic mode after inserting a media NEW [Return] and then SAVE"SPACELORDS.HI",8 [Return]. When Space Lords finds the file SPACELORDS.HI on drive 8 it will automatically load the list and stores new results without further action.

Warning: Due to a bug in the original ROM of early Commodore 1541 drives it's possible that when writing the highscore file the contents of the disk may be damaged.



SPACE LORDS was developed for C64 PAL models. It also works well on NTSC devices - but 10% faster and there are max. 3 plasma balls at the same time.

The P1X3L.net development team and RGCD wishes you much fun with SPACE LORDS!

Text: Retrofan & ALeX / distribution: RGCD