-------- REDSHIFT -------- It's Earth year 2992. Humankind is part of one of two factions battling for the control of the multiverse. After a long time of stalemate, the enemy faction, led by the prince Kalkux, developed faster and more powerful spaceships, achieving important victories. The human race started to lose faith in survival. Ships with artificial intelligence were not clever enough to handle new enemy ships. Remote controlling via quantum entanglement was not reliable in other universes. On the brink of despair, humans developed a new and faster ship, the "REDSHIFT" class, with a key innovation: a human pilot would be physically present in the ship. Your mission is to take control of Redshift to expel the enemy from key galaxies and universes. Structure and Concepts ---------------------- - This program is designed for ZX Spectrum 128K and compatibles. - The game consist of 5 levels (galaxies) with 3 difficulty levels each (parallel universes with enemy defense variations). By liberating the three universes, the "real" ending will be shown. - In each galaxy, there are platforms in open space, which Redshift should clear of enemy ships and structures, thus giving back the territory to the original dwellers, the alien races allied to humans. These platforms and the carrier of Redshift travel at very different speeds, so Redshift will be launched over the platforms by a magnetic catapult which compensates the speed difference, avoiding enemy attacks and saving fuel. Press fire to skip the sequence. - Redshift is protected by a plasma shield, that can resist up to three hits, after which it will be exposed to the enemy attacks. Fortunately, the shield automatically regenerates after a while. - The allies had left capsules with parts that can be attached to Redshift to improve its attack power. These were included in the original specification of the spaceship, they were built by allies, but due to supply chain disruptions, they could not be included in the prototype. They basically consist of shockwave generators and smart seek-and-destroy mines. - Additionally, Redshift got two resources provided by humans: bombing by allies and support ship. Each action is mapped to a key, and they have a limited number of uses. - The bombing by allies deploys a bomber ship just front of Redshift, inflicting a massive damage in that area. - The support ship is an automated drone that will assist Redshift in battle. It's designed to dodge enemy attacks, so Redshift does not need to protect it. However, its fuel is limited and it will depart from the field after a while. - Some high rank ships, after its destruction, will leave behind some useful items, as shield regenerators, or fuel for the support drone or bombers. - Also, some medals will show up to simbolise Redshift's merit in the mission. By liberating a galaxy, it will be rewarded with a bonus per medal, as well as for destruction, and remaining supports from drone and bombings. Main Menu of the Game --------------------- Press the corresponding number to select the options. 1) Start: Begins the mission. 2) Controls: Allows to select the control method: Keyboard, Kempston Joystick, Sinclair (6-0), Cursor, Kempston Mouse or Redefine Keys. Default Keys are: O Left P Right Q Up A Down Space Fire L Ask support drone Enter Bomb H Pause R Abort Additionally, if the shockwave generators are attached, the waves can be focused by pressing the up or down keys while firing, or pressing and holding the right button of the Kempston Mouse. By selecting "Black Redshift" option, Redshift and allied ships will be shown with black paintwork, to improve visibility and minimise the "colour clash". To re-sync the scroll in LCD screens with interlaced mode, hold fire and briefly press pause key during game. 3) Sound: Opens the sound configuration menu. Allows to select the volume and pitch of sounds separately (explosions, laser) and background music. Trivia ------ This game is based in the title "Galaxian III", written by Ariel Ruiz in 1992, as part of a series started by Galaxian I and II in 1990. The games have no relationship with the Namco arcade. "Galaxian III" was the first World XXI Soft game to include machine code routines extensively (besides a BASIC block), commanding a sprites management routine taken from a magazine (Microhobby Especial NÂș6, "Control de Sprites" by Pablo Ariza). However, it also included coloured graphics routines coded by Ariel, making possible later games like Carlos Michelis and Thieves School. The Microhobby routine used index registers (IX and IY) to address sprites tables, a feature used in the mentioned games. "Galaxian III" was a breakthrough and inflection point for World XXI Soft. As a game, it was decent, although its platforms pseudo-scrolling over the generic sprites routine made it rather slow, and the gameplay was repetitive. Credits ------- Concept, code and graphics: Ariel Ruiz Music: Richard "Kulor" Armijo Music engine and Vortex Tracker II (c) Sergey Bulba ZX7 Compression: Einar Saukas Testing and additional support: S?ren Bertelsen, Velesoft and Vladimir Kochetkov (c) 1992-2019 Ariel Ruiz. All rights reserved. No parts of this publication should be reproduced or uploaded to databases or other distribution systems without the previous consent of the author. Web World XXI Soft: http://www.worldxxisoft.com EMail: worldxxisoft@yahoo.com