Fredrik the Ball is Back: Spider Maze 2 in progress

 11th January 2026

First of all, a belated Happy New Year to all C64 and retro kind. At last, a new blog update and a new C64 project is in the making. Please read on to find out what is happening :)

Back in November 2018, I launched a public domain game called "Spider Maze" for the Commodore 64. It was a game I originally wrote in KickAssembler as part of a hobby based tutorial for Scene World. The game got finished off into a full game and got released on my T.N.D website. You can find it here.

Thinking about it, this game was launched just under 8 years ago, and I had so much enjoyment developing it. Now, partially during the winter of 2026, I am currently making a sequel. Once again, I am back in full swing coding with KickAssembler and CBMPRGStudio V4.7.0 once again. As usual, the graphics, and level design are being implemented using Charpad V2.7.6 and the game sprites are being created using Sprite Pad V2.0. The game will be crunched with Exomizer V2.0.11, especially the level data. Music aims to be made in either Goat Tracker Ultra V1.5.5 or Electronic Music System V7.03, but I have not decided which one to use yet.

Fredrick the Ball is returning on another adventure. This time not in a quest for greed, but on a rescue mission. His girlfriend Ruby has been kidnapped and is imprisoned inside the dungeon which is inside the lair of the spiders. In order to rescue her, Fredrik must pick up all the diamonds spread around 16 different zones. If he collects them all, Ruby will be free. Otherwise, if not then she will be sacrificed to the evil spiders.

The concept and old features

The game idea aims to similar to the original Spider Maze, but if you take a look at the snapshot below, you will notice that I made some improvements to the look and feel of the game. I also added a challenge to the game concept as well. There are the regular old features, where the player has to collect all the diamonds, whilst avoiding getting killed by the deadly spiders. The player can also pickup items to help or hinder. The bulb will charge the player up and make Fredrik invulnerable for a short period of time. However, he is not invulnerable against obstacles such as skulls. There is also the extra life heart, which can be collected on every 4th level. (Below you can see level 3's design)

New game features

There are also some new features blended into the game as well. The first are two collectibles. The first one represents the letter "B", which does nothing spectacular, it gives the player bonus points (Well 500 points to be honest). Also the second collectible implemented is a clock, which will either add or deduct time from the clock. This will remain a mystery to help or hinder Fredrik the Ball. Also if you take a look above, the score panel has a border around it. However the border will be animated and scroll around in order to make the panel more interesting. The panel has no flashing effects this time.

New deadly features for Poor Fredrick

There are some new deadly surprises implemented into the game as well. The first is that you have to race against the clock to complete each level. If the time runs out, the game ends. The second new surprise is that, not only will the player have to race against the clock and avoid the deadly skulls. The player also must make a safe path away from the deadly spikes (which starts on level 5) - even when invulnerable. This game is very cruel, but challenging, but the player will be starting with 5 lives.

If you take a look below, I have designed the first level (level 05 - not level 01), which features the deadly spikes. The spikes animate by rising and falling. The player can pass the spikes easily if a blank path is available.

My quick plan for Spider Maze 2

My plan for Spider Maze 2 is to feature 16 levels (I think the game perhaps could be hard enough with 16 levels). As you start each level, less time is available to complete it (by 200). The first 8 levels start with slow spiders, then levels 9-16 removes the drag rate of the spiders, forcing them to move the same speed as the player. The game aims to be more colourful and even more frantic compared to the previous Spider Maze.  

Other plans include making music and mixing sound effects with the in game music. I have not decided which music composer I will be using to make this new game, but it is likely that I could be using either GT Ultra V1.5.5 with SFX support or Electronic Music System V7.03 and code my customise sound effects. It is likely to be the first option, depending on time.


Target release date of the game

The release date aims to be some time in February 2026. This is not going to be a long game project, since the code from the first Spider Maze (Tutorial test version) is being adapted to this new game. Although I cannot give you a full date release when the game will be launched. The game will feature on my itch.io showcase when it is ready for release. Like all T.N.D games, Spider Maze 2 will be free to download and also an online web player version will be featured on my itch.io page.

How Repetition 64 was formed

 28th April 2025

During the winter of 2025, I had some time spare in the evenings to participate in the "Simon Basic" game jam run by Phaze101 and Retro Programmers Inside. The idea of the game was to create and develop a game suited for a retro computer or console which resembles the old classic type-in game "Simon Says". We know there were popular toys in the 1980s and 1990s called "Simon Says" or "Einstein". Let me explain more about the theory of the game.

"Simon Says" is a simple game, where you watch a sequence of lights (and listen to the sounds) played by the computer. After listening to the sound, your task is to repeat the sequence of the lights/sounds in the correct order. If you successfully completed the sequence you move on to the next round, where an extra light/sound is played. The game keeps playing on until you select a wrong note/light.

Well, being that I did not make anything for a very long time for the game Jam, due to either 1. the production idea was too difficult, 2. I didn't have enough time available and was very busy on another project. I decided to create my own entry for the game jam. There was a rule though. "The game must use any form of BASIC". I was allowed to use machine code, as long as I keep it minimal. The game that came to light was "Repetition 64".

A rough start

When I started working on "Repetition 64". The first thing I wanted to do was work on the basics of the game. I needed to have some sprites to prepare the buttons. I booted up CBMPRGStudio V4.5.0 to create sprites for the game project using the sprite editor. It was simply a square. Then afterwards, I exported the square sprite as pBASIC data. (pBASIC is an BASIC interpreter that uses labels rather than numbers, then after compiling, generates the listing using numbers. I hated working with line numbers, because I easily got myself lost. pBASIC on the other hand made life much easier).  Since a whole sprite consists of 64 sprites ($00-$3f) I needed to work out where to POKE the sprite data. So I POKE the data to $2000-$203f. (8192-8255). This was only for the first part of the project.

A touch of randomness

The next thing I had to do was think "how am I able to make the computer be able to play the notes at random?". This idea was fun, but I got round to a simple solution. It was to generate a for/next loop which generated a random set of numbers between 1 and 4 (using dice simulation RND functions) and then POKE the random number table TO $c000-$c0ff (49152 to 49407) inside the loop as 256 bytes in memory. 

Getting the computer to play the notes

The first thing I did was used CBMPRGStudio's built in SID editor to prepare the chords for each of the notes for the game. After I was happy with those, I exported them as GOSUB labels ready for the game to be able to play them. Of course I also had to create a loop that completely initialised the sounds.

The easy part was preparing the random numbers into memory (49152), the hardest part was getting the computer to play the random sequences. Apparently not, it wasn't that hard to be honest. All I had to do was create another for/next loop and PEEK each number from the random number sequence table. Then afterwards I checked if a marked variable matches the number of the random number, and then jump to a subroutine in the listing to play the correct colour and note. 

Getting the player to play the notes

A similar trick to computer playing the notes was made to get the player to play the notes and light up the correct squares. However, there was one trick I had to do to solve this trick and that was of course check if a wrong note was being played. If the variable stored from the player was played incorrectly then the program jumps to a subroutine that process a fail sound and then deducts one life from the player. Then loop to the computer playing the same sequence again. If the player got the sequence correct, then the level variable increments by one, and adds one extra sequence to the sequence play/read loop. The program can play a maximum of 255 sequences, but I highly doubt the player can do that.

Scoring and bonus

I made this game allow add 150 to the score variable for a correct note played, and if a whole sequence was completed, I added 1,000 points to the score variable. Also after eight levels were completed, I added an extra life to the lives variable.

Adding skill levels.

Having one skill level during game play was pretty much boring. I already had one slow speed set for an easy game. So, I created a variable set as a skill level, which was set if F1, F3, F5 or F7 was pressed. F1 set up the easy skill level, F3 set up normal, F5 set up hard and F7 set up the totally difficult setting. The skill levels were based on the speed of the playing time for each of the notes. After play testing through these in the main BASIC program, I was very pleased with what I did, I decided to work on presentation.

Presentation and music

I wanted to make Repetition 64 more presentable. This was so that the game focused more on the quality design, than being just a standard basic game with a plain black screen and 4 sprites with four colours. While designing the graphics, the custom made character sets and screens were designed first using Charpad V2.7.6 free edition. Then afterwards I started a new character set project in CBMPRGStudio and imported the graphics font and other data into memory. The reason being was because Charpad only allows limited attributes. I wanted to use both colour and screen RAM based on custom colour data, rather than character sets. After importing the character set and re-colouring the character screen for both the title screen and game screen. I exported both screen data and colour RAM as PETSCII graphics and exported the character set as BASIC into the project. After generating the whole BASIC program, I came across a snag, where the screen and colour data did not display in the correct row, and also the sprite data overlapped the BASIC listing also. 

I needed to solve this problem, quick and fast before running out of time. The solution was to keep the BASIC listing, but instead of using DATA statements and PETSCII screen layout listings, I decided to rely on creating some limited machine code. This had to be done for the sprites and the screen display. Also I wanted to add an interrupt to the title screen so that it can scroll text across the screen and also play some music I made in Goat Tracker Ultra V1.5.5. So I created some small routines to create an IRQ raster interrupt with scroll text and play music. To finish off, I tested the IRQs, screen display routines, etc (outside the BASIC listing) and used a M/C monitor on the Action Replay to convert the hexadecimal addresses to decimal SYS addresses. Then afterwards, I put the SYS addresses into the BASIC listing.

Making the Music

I had an old tune which was already released on the title screen. Since there was still a little bit of time, I decided to make some music exclusively for this game. This was made using Goat Tracker Ultra V1.5.5. The music had some 80s space disco sort of feeling, also featured echo lead sounds to definitely give out a space kind of effect. I feel that this could be one of my best tunes by far this year - but could I beat that in my next game C64 project later on this year? We will have to wait and see.

Putting the game together

So, then you may wonder how did this game get put together? Well, the rule for the competition was that the game MUST have a BASIC dialect and should also be runnable from BASIC. I followed that rule. However, putting the game together required two different builds. The first part was compiling the pBASIC listing into C64 BASIC (using CBMPRGStudio). Then afterwards, add an import binary command of the actual BASIC listing along with the machine code program, charset, sprites, the two screens and music (with a safety offset of two). This resulted to 116 blocks file size.

The finished release

I did two versions of the game. The first was the game jam version (The 116 blocks release), where everything remained uncrunched and was runnable from BASIC. The other version (featured on TND's itch.io page) features exactly the same game, but instead, the game was crunched the good old Public Domain tool, Time Cruncher V5.0 from 1988. I used the BASIC run (JMP $A659) command and $37 as $01 to set the BASIC listing to run the program after decrunching from memory. Finally I put the TND presentation linker on to the game, crunched again with Exomizer and everything was running nicely. The reason for why Exomizer's Exo BASIC wasn't used was because it wasn't compatible with the tape loader I used for the TAP version and crunched with TC V5, worked fine for me.

So how did the project turn out.

Development of Repetition 64 lasted a while, during the cold awful winter and the project went really well. If there were improvements made to this game, I probably would have added scrolling character graphics, like I did with a few of my games, add a custom option where you could play in cross mode as well as square. I probably would have moved the sprites around to increase more craziness for the player who plays it, but that could be "Rotor Repeat" later on this year, in order to mark the 25th anniversary since my first ever C64 release in September 1995 (Update: 11/01/2026 - Unfortunately Rotor Repeat did not happen, but I can confirm that the game idea is not cancelled.). However, I was developing towards a deadline, and decided to keep it pure and simple, but presentable at the end.

Where to get the game

The game was created specially for Retro Programmers Inside and Phaze101, but I have not supplied the whole project code publicly yet, in respect to the game jam rules. However, after the game jam has finished broadcasting, I have now uploaded the entire project onto my github page publiclyso that you can load it into CBMPRGStudio. You can find the code here:

https://github.com/RichardTND/Repetition64

You can download the Repetition 64 from my itch.io page which is via this link below:

https://richard-tnd.itch.io/repetition64

 

2023 at a glance

2024 is here, and 2023 has been a really quiet year on the production front due to everything that had gone back to normality. The year has also been pretty memorable as I attended the Zzap! 64 Live 2023 and met a few C64 enthusiasts down there, including a few regulars. Anyway, some highlights of 2023 on the T.N.D productions front were as follows:~

What? No entry for the Intro Creation Compo 2022/2023?

You heard that right! I did not make any entries for the intro creation compo 2022/2023. The reason behind it was because I have been used to making intros that range from $0800-$4000 that allowed use of $0400-$07e8 as the screen RAM copy/to location. The intro compo had removed that category and made things more challenging. Also I had no time during the compo due to a few projects that were in the pipeline. I did code a new intro in 2023, but that was near to the end of 2023. It looked like this:

SEUCK

As usual I have been supporting the Shoot Em Up Construction Kit and ironically this year, I did not make any new SEUCK games. Instead, some friends/contacts contacted me and asked for one or two enhancements for their SEUCK productions. There were three SEUCK games which had support from me in 2023.

Yauzeras

This is the first of them. Yauzeras by GibRanx. Yauzeras featured a brand new front end, hi score table and even a brand new score panel and powerful music. It got featured free on the Zzap! 64 Micro Action magazine's cover mount. Both Gibranx and myself were very pleased with this production.

Synthia 2 and The Pure Sword

Another two SEUCK games, which more or less came after Yauzeras was submitted to me were Synthia 2 - Revenge of the ID and also The Pure Sword by Eleanor Burns. I was extremely impressed with how well both games turned out to be. There wasn't much for me to do apart from code a new front end and write music for both games. Although, The Pure Sword needed a new status panel implemented. It was very impressive that platform games can actually be made with SEUCK with *not much* code required. Eleanor was a superstar with this.

Synthia 2 starred a cybernetic heroine, who had save sleeping soldiers inside a massive complex. She had to solve puzzles by picking up the correct tools/equipment that will allow her to progress further inside the complex. The title screen featured a rendition of a tune that was originally composed by Flapsandwich, which was composed in Deflemask. The game music didn't fit so I re-did the same tune using GoatTracker V2 and credited the original composer for it. The in game music was my own composition.

The Pure Sword was another gem of a SEUCK platformer. This time however not a multi-flip screen adventure. Instead you had to progress past each screen blasting enemies. This was also the first flip screen SEUCK game that allows you to shoot and destroy enemies and use power ups. Eleanor did everything apart from the new score panel and music. 

Herisferix

Pinov Vox created a SEUCK game, in which was a vertical blaster called Herisferix. It featured some nice graphics, and plenty alien blasting fun. It was featured in issue 14 of Zzap! 64 Micro Action's covermount. The game was submitted to me first with a special request for enhancing his game using Martin Piper's SEUCK Redux framework. This was my final SEUCK Redux project for 2023 and the result turned out quite nice. The player was able to collect power ups and fight the bosses. Aliens were also able to target the player's position before firing stuff at it. Pinov had done a nice job with his game design - and it really was a good result at the end. Very smart.

SEUCK Title Screen Maker V1.6

SEUCK Enhancements ended with a brand new version of the SEUCK Title Screen Maker. It was a utility that allowed you to design and create a brand new front end for your SEUCK games, along with a scrolling text, optional hi score table, music, etc. However, there was something special I had in store for the title screen maker. You were able to make and install in game enhancements, such as power ups, new score panel, etc. This was done by loading in Turbo Assembler or Turbo Macro Pro, importing the code snippet, modify the settings (if required) and then saving the source file as an object file (using assemble to disk e.g. Back arrow and 5). Then after the enhancement was assemble to disk, it was up to the user to load in the SEUCK game, use an Action Replay Fastload /Machine Code monitor to then install the front end, enhancements (and execute the enhancement installation routines) and then execute and run the title screen code. 

Blazon in co-op with TND

My activity in Blazon was less active, due to time restrictions I had. However we did have a main project. My personal interest was continuing to make Blazon run like a c64 scene game development group. Well, this certainly did happen with only one release. Although I did code a few intros later in 2023, which I saved for future development projects. 

For Speed We Need 3

I wanted to write something for the Retro Programmers Inside game jam. It was a Racing Cars game jam. The game I was developing for the jam with the Blazon team as a co-op production was For Speed We Need 3. I remember the first two For Speed We Need games, and they were pretty basic. I wanted to make the third one a final in the series and make it more of a racing game with a twist. It was a push scrolling game in which you could drive a car on the road, and have to avoid dodging barriers and other obstacles. If opponents hit your car, some damage was set to it. There were no levels as it was intended to be a Le Mans style game. 

Hugues (Ax!s) helped develop the main game graphics, whereas Freeze/Blazon created sprites, title screen logo and loading bitmap for the game. I did the programming using KickAssembler. I also composed the music using Odie/Cosine's EMS V7.03, which personally is a great C64 music editor after you get the hang of it - and I am using it on a current game project. This could be my first ever C64 game in years to have used this nice composer. The Blazon team did the game testing. The game ended up featured on Zzap! 64 Micro Action's covermount, issue 13.

TND Games

There have been less new C64 games from TND in 2023, due to time issues (as mentioned earlier on). However three new games, and one re-visited game creation popped into the C64 scene. There was funny snake game, an arcade tribute and also a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up revisited on the C64. Let's take a look at those three highlights.

Snake vs Bomb 2

The first Snake VS Bomb in 2022 was a success over the Christmas period, along with Cruiser-X 79. Now 2023 had something more fun and spectacular. Snake vs Bomb 2 was pitched to be an Easter release for the Retro Programmers Inside Snake game jam. Snake VS Bomb 2 was a horizontal scrolling eat 'em up and avoid game. You controlled a snake in which is slithering along the road beside a canyon. Your objective is to eat as much fruit as you can but avoid the bombs. You had to travel a specific distance until a level was completed. 

Just like with Snake vs Bomb, Hugues designed the game graphics and sprites for this production, while I programmed and compiled it in C64Studio. The music and sound effects were made using Goat Tracker Ultra (I cannot remember which version I used for it). I was very pleased with the overall result of this game.

Lunar City

This game was one of my tributes to the classic arcade game, Atlantis. However, much different. Lunar City was a simple shooting gallery game. The player had to target aliens by firing turrets at the evil aliens that try to destroy your radioactive pods. You had a set number of aliens to shoot before that location is saved. However, there was a slight catch. If your damage level resulted to one value below the number of aliens to shoot, all radioactive pods or your sentinel defence bases are destroyed, you lose the game. Lunar City had 16 levels, in which were challenging one level after another.

The game had some really nice presentation. Hugues helped me once again with the game graphics and sprites. I composed music using Graffity's DMC V5.0+ and sound effects were created using SFXEd V3.2 by Achim Volkers. The result of this game looked pretty good. It even appeared on Zzap! 64 Micro Action's covermount #15 in the summer of 2023.

Blastopia DX - Special Edition

The final full game of mine for 2023 was pitched for the Christmas Zzap! 64 Micro Action Covermount #17. It was a special edition of Blastopia DX. I wanted to make something for the covermount before Christmas, but I didn't have time to create anything new. I was so busy with my Lemon64 tutorial game Race 'N Smash, I decided to update the RGCD 16KB Cartridge Compo game, Blastopia. The update was a set of in game options and also including a hi score table. Apart from all of that. The game was still Blastopia DX, but you could play the game in one of three different game modes. I was happy with the result.

Retro Gaming Events

Usually I like to visit C64/Retro Gaming Events, when they hit my region in the UK. However, in late 2020 - 2022. I only managed to attend Revival 2020 part 1, before the pandemic hit the UK. It was a great event with many likeminded people, like myself. Anyway I did go to one specific event in 2023 which was:

Zzap! Live 2023

In mid August 2023, the Fusion and Revival Retro Events organized a charity event called "Zzap! Live 2023". This event was held at Kenilworth in the West Midlands. It was a fun filled convention that had a room full of Commodore 64s and AMIGAs, some of which allowed you to freely choose which game to play by loading it from devices such as the Ultimate 64, 1541Ultimate, SD2IEC, etc. I was mostly there playing some games, but I also got to talk to some likeminded enthusiasts, coders, SID musicians, etc. Not only that, we had a few laughs as well. We talked about how I currently made C64 games, why I still make C64 games today, and also about composing music, SEUCK etc. It was a nice event. The only memorabilia I bought from Zzap! live was a game from Psytronik, in memory of the late TMR/Cosine. I had fond memories playing a prototype version of Hammer Down when I visited Revival 2013 for the first time and it was a really good laugh. 

The biggest highlight of 2023: Snake VS Bomb 2

So then, I have revealed practically everything here about 2023. What was my biggest highlight of 2023? Zzap! 64 Live 2023 was fantastic. It brought back memories, and was a great event. However my biggest highlight for 2023 was  Snake vs Bomb 2. This was perhaps my all time favourite creation I wrote in 2023. It was one of those really crazy games which made many people really love its casual game play. I am really chuffed.

So what is happening in 2024?

Not much can be mentioned about what is happening in 2024. Except I do have three things in store for this year. The first is currently on top of my list (although started in 2023). Alpacalypse, is a co-op production I am working with Hugues, and the Blazon team. Also I aim to create Tape Master Pro V5. A new tape mastering tool, featuring Martin Piper's tape loader I regularly use. Some plans for it include support for hi-res bitmaps and music players with volume control fading after loading programs have loaded, as well as keep some of the old features. There is also Captain Ishtar 2. Surely there will be some new stuff coming.

A dawn of a new game production: Alpacalypse

20th August 2023

It has been very quiet in this blog, but my C64 activity hasn't been quiet. It has been very busy in fact. I did a couple of SEUCK enhancements which were Cipher Patrol 2: The Pure Sword by Eleanor Burns, Yauzeras by Gibranx and a very special edition of VIOS by Mase. Other main game projects I made were For Speed We Need 3, a silly vertical scrolling racing Le-Mans style game I made with my C64 friends at Blazon and also with Ax!s, who kindly drew the in game graphics. Also I wrote the much loved and highly addictive Snake vs Bomb 2 and finally a fun Atlantis style game called Lunar City, where Ax!s kindly did the graphics for both of those two games. 

Finally, I visited Zzap! Live in Kenilworth last weekend. It was the first time I went to a computer event since the deadly Coronavirus pandemic stopped everything. I met great people down there, and not only was I playing games, I also shared fond memories about C64-related stuff and had a few laughs some of the people down there. However this blog is not about the Zzap! Live event. It is about my latest project. What is the project called? For a start off, it is going to be made with the group that helped me with For Speed We Need 3. That's right, it is going to be another Blazon game release. The game is called:

Alpacalypse

So then, what is the game all about? If you take a look at my photo edited rough design you will see. The game is a horizontal scrolling jump, run, collect and avoid game, based in a post-apocalyptic world on Planet Earth. You play an Alpaca, which is on a quest for survival. The problem is that it has to travel a very long distance along a dangerous path. Underneath your path is a deadly lava inferno, spitting out lava at random. Where as above the sky, it is also raining lava fireballs. Your Alpaca must dodge the fireballs, collect the fruit and avoid the traps (marked X). If the Alpaca gets hit by fireballs, its energy will be drained - but if it triggers a trap a giant 10 ton weight will fall onto the Alpaca instantly. Traps and full loss of energy results to losing a life.

Please note that the game mockup (featuring my graphics) will not be the final graphics, as Hagiler and Freeze has stepped into the graphics front. My main focus will be the programming and music and sound effects.

What about scoring points and bonuses?

The player will be able to score points. It can be done in various ways. First of all, for every few seconds, 10 points will be added to the player's score.  Also fruit will give Alpaca points in 100s, depending on what the fruit item scoffed is. It will also increase the energy for a while. There are also bonuses. After the player reaches its full distance, a level is completed it will score a bonus points of 1,000 plus an extra 100 points based on energy left. 

The levels - how will they differ?

The game will be using a wrap-around map, throughout the game. The map will consist of 256 blocks in width and 5 blocks in height, reserving the last 4 rows of blocks specially for the status panel. The levels will be varied with use of how rapidly fireballs will appear, and also how often traps will appear. The very first level intends to be easy, but the game will intensify as you progress further into the game.

How is the project being developed?

Alpacalypse is being programmed and compiled using Kick Assembler V5.25 and I am using CBMPRGStudio V4.1.0 as the main programming IDE for the production. The compression is currently being done using TS Crunch V1.3 for the time being, where testing will be done using VICE and of course my trusty Ultimate 64, which I aim to make the music in EMS V7.03 - like I did for For Speed We Need 3).

How and when will the game be released?

The game (like with many of my C64 games) aims be released as a free to download digital release from my TND website and itch.io pages (where there will also be an online version of my game) and possibly a few other places. The game will be formatted as D64 (digital disk) and also as TAP (digital tape) format, featuring a fast loader tape turbo. The game will not be a multi-load, as I find these to be a real headache. Everything will be put as a single file (except for the hi-score loader/saver active on the disk version).

Where it comes to the release date. That is not yet known. This is because my projects will depend on my wellbeing and motivation to get things completed. I am also between other hobby projects and real life commitments. I can give you an estimated duration of perhaps 2-3 months - but it is hoped that the game could be ready and released before then. I am done with making deadline projects, because of the stress of bug fixing very close to the release date. So there is no deadline.

Keep up to date with my C64 releases by visiting:
The New Dimension (on itch.io)
or
The New Dimension (main web site)

Update 13th October 2023

This project is still under development, and is still at an early stage, but progress intends to be pretty slow. The release date is most likely to be somewhere in the Winter months of 2024. T.N.D is most likely to develop some other small, but fun C64 projects in between this project. Any new productions finished will be announced in blog updates.

2022 Reflections

It is that time, and for the very first time I thought it would be nice to reflect about the game-related releases of 2022, which I made. Warning – this is a very long post, but hopefully you should enjoy it and you may get some laughs out of it.

No SEUCK Compo in 2022

First of all, unlike previous years I did not launch the traditional Official C64 SEUCK Competition, this is because I decided to retire as host from the competition. A new organizer was found, and there was going to be one at the fall of 2022 but due to busy schedules and other reasons, the competition has been postponed to 2023. Merman is a good C64 enthusiast and a writer for Scene World and also runs the SEUCK Vault. He has been appointed as future host for the SEUCK Game development competition. When that will be we don't know, but if anything does happen then I'll post news about it on my TND web site.

SEUCK Enhancements

Looking back in 2022, I started the new year with a utility called the “SEUCK Title Screen Maker”. It was a fun utility that allowed you to create brand new title screens for standalone games that were constructed with the Shoot Em Up Construction Kit. Those who were bored with the old front ends were able to construct a game with an animated title screen full of colour, optional hi score table and also plenty of music. No code was needed to make a new front end, just access to a freezer cartridge like the Action Replay MK VI cartridge or VICE.



The easy part was developing the utility. The hardest part was writing the manual. I am usually not good at explaining things technical, etc. There was good feedback and improvement suggestions about the production, some of which got implemented (Multi tunes). I was really pleased with how the SEUCK Title Screen Maker turned out. A few people have actually used it. I know Vox Video Game used it for Diamond, and Mac of TUGCS used it to make his SEUCK creation, The SEUCK Camp.

The other SEUCK enhancement I did was a special tutorial of SEUCK School. A tutorial where you could make a new score panel for your SEUCK game, using 8 sprites in Rayfish. This was to be split into two parts, but unfortunately part 2 had to be postponed due to raster time issues and needing more investigation. Perhaps in the new year this will be solved.

That said, regarding enhancements. There was one unreleased game which was made for the delayed Reset 64, which I enhanced with a new front end and music. All will be revealed in issue 15 of Reset when it comes out.

... Now what about the games I have developed throughout 2022? Well, let's check them out!

Lane Crazy

The very first C64 game creation I wrote in 2022 (although I started it Christmas 2021) was a really fun creation. It is quite a memorable production. I know I had loads fun coding it in C64Studio, and for the game to appear on the Zzap! 64 Micro Action covermount was a real bonus.

I teamed up with Blazon and Friends to develop a really fun hi score survival challenge called Lane Crazy. The concept was quite original and turned out well amongst the crowd. You had four balls rolling down a vertical scrolling lane while holes appeared at random. You had to use either a joystick or keyboard to shift the balls left or right. If one ball fell through the hole, the game was over. There were 8 levels in which the player had to survive, where after two levels the game got much faster.



While developing this game, I was using some of the usual graphics tools, such as Charpad V2.7.6 free and Spritepad V2.0 BETA. Usually my graphics looked really rushed out. However the result of making the in game graphics turned out nice and smooth. There were separate void tiles specially made for each level. When I was programming the game, I made the code copy charsets that formed the void and placed it into the actual charset that formed the scrolling void. The rest of the scroll was a wrap-around scroll, apart from the holes that appeared on screen at random. The concept really worked. The hardest part was to get the smooth scroller working on NTSC, but at the end I managed it.

When I was composing music for this game, I decided to go oldschool and use DMC V4.0 on my Ultimate 64. The music for the game blended in quite nicely.

Lane Crazy was really great fun, and it was nice of Firelord, Logiker and Baracuda to have teamed up to help me bring out a quality production, which saw the light of day. A huge thank you to you all for helping me out with such a successful project. Maybe we can do another new game in the future.



Tasered in the Crotch

The next game (Ironically) I wrote was a little joke game. It was called Tasered in the Crotch. Despite the silly name, and it being inspired by Commodore Format Archive’s Twitter poll (Dick Tracey, Cisco Heat, Tasered in the Crotch). The majority of people voted to be Tasered in the Crotch. This gave me a funny idea for a game coded in C64Studio. It was a fun little shooting gallery style game.

You had police officers lined up on a high balcony (or maybe a scissor lift). They are armed with their new state of the art tasers. Your task was to command each officer to fire a taser at the bank robbers that were walking/running past. Some were armed with smoke bombs, and you had to defend your officers from being hit by a bomb. Also, you had to watch out for innocent civilians who were passing A bomb or tasering civilians resulted in a loss of a life. If the number of criminals escaped exceeded the quota set for each level, the game was lost.



The game design was yet again made in Charpad and Sprite Pad (Same version as before). I wanted to make a few different landscapes, but with the limited number of characters, I had to improvise. After importing into the game project in C64Studio. The code was in place, and the result looked really good.

It was great fun making this game, and the music (made in Goat Tracker V2.76), which was featured on the title screen sort of had an Ocean Loader inspired tune to it just after the introduction might sound quite familiar.

A game which was intended to be a joke turned out to be something much more playable and successful, compared to Dick Tracey and Cisco Heat - It also appeared on the Zzap! 64 Micro Action covermount and was quite popular amongst one particular video reviewer :)


Little Nippers and Little Nippers DX

Reset had launched a 4K game development competition. I wrote a fun little single button game in which later on become a full game production. Little Nippers was the game. It was a fun co-op production which I made in C64Studio. This was a single screen game, where naughty kids were running across the beach. There were buckets lined up and it was up to you to fire a crab out of the buckets in sequence, by using either the spacebar key or the fire button. The crabs then moved in a straight line and if you nipped a pesky kid, points would have been scored according to distance from the sea. If the crab entered the deep end of the water, it gets lost.




Although Little Nippers started as a 2022 4K game competition entry. However, with summer on its way, and the competition submission deadline had finished. I decided to team up with Hugues Poisseroux to make a full version specially for Zzap! Micro Action’s 9th covermount, before taking a break from it and focussing on finishing off one of my main game projects.

The new version of Little Nippers gave the player five different beach/seaside locations. Before you were able to complete each location, you had to complete eight levels. There were 40 levels in total. Also there was a fun incentive which was added to the game. You had a time limit to launch your crabs out of the buckets before they have enough and jump out. There was also an incentive where you could fling a jellyfish for more points. Little Nippers DX was a good highlight and it really turned out to be a fun and pretty much addictive game creation.

 

Hugues' loading bitmap really highlights how fun the game was to be, It highlights some of the elements that were featured in the game. A snappy crab, a jellyfish and also a bikini (or two). All of which blended into the all new version of TapeTool turbo loader.




TheC64 Coding Challenge - Poing Ultra

I joined the group, Retro Programmers Inside. It was a group of retro computing enthusiasts, who were learning to program games and other fun stuff. The group was run by Prince/Phaze101, and Retro Programmers Inside. They did weekly video casts which mainly involved coding tutorials and also run game jams. The challenge I participated in was the PONG challenge. The game was called Poing Ultra.

My challenge was to make a new retro game, which suited the PONG challenge. It was to mark 50 years of the classic arcade bat and ball game, PONG. I thought it would be fun to make my very own game using RGL’s theC64 full size computer. The game was constructed using various Public Domain utilities I owned back in the 1990s and also the previously commercial Multi-Screen Construction Kit, and Action Replay cartridge MKVI (plugin). Music was made in DMC V4.0, The music was mainly techno, trance style and it worked out pretty well in the music editor. The programming was done bare bones in Turbo Assembler / Turbo Macro Pro most of the time.




There were a few pitfalls I encountered while developing this game. Although the main game was fully complete and working well in the assembler. I should have programmed the title screen as a separate file. Instead, I used the same assembly file and run out of memory. It wasn’t a complete failure developing this game. I ported the code to 64TASS and finished off the production using the cross-development tool. The game graphics were then drawn in Face's FacePainter, and the result turned out quite nicely in the overall productions. Mastering was finished with Martin Piper's TapeTool V1.0.0.7




The game got submitted to Prince/Phaze101, who then later broadcasted the game live on his Twitch channel along with some other entries. He was very impressed with the game overall, especially the graphics and presentation. While I was watching the broadcast, I was very pleased with the overall result.

Slug VS Lettuce

I developed a new little game, as part of the Scene World feature “Let’s Make a C64 Game”. This time it was a 10 minutes survival challenge called Slug vs Lettuce. It was a little game in which was to teach the basics of making a single screen platform game using KickAssembler. You played a slug that has to jump from platform to platform, gobbling up the lettuce. The slug had to avoid getting washed out by the falling salt droplets.

The game graphics were designed using the usual cross-development platform tools. The music was made in Goat Tracker. The rest of the project was being made in VS Code, and KickAssembler via plugins. Although I liked KickAssembler, the one thing I least liked, during the development of this project were the nuisances that VS Code developed. Popup-tooltip, etc. Of course compiling the code was easy enough, a basic push of F6 on the compile target file, and then F5 to run it, but there were no possibilities of crunching it with Exomizer (or the brand new TS Crunch). Instead I had to just make a batch script file and execute that.

This game did not turn out too bad, and it was really fun to make in Kick Assembler. However, the hardest part was to get the jump and charset collision mechanics accurate. The good thing about it though, was that the game worked out really well.



My biggest C64 project - Cruiser-X 79 – finally finished and released

The majority of 2022 was spent on my main game project, Cruiser-X 79. I had waited too long for additional graphics and level maps. Unfortunately, I received nothing due to many busy periods which Saul had to go through. – That was until I thought about an alternative plan. I did promise to get Cruiser-X 79 finished in 2022 and I really wanted to do that. However, I wanted to try and make the job easier for Saul. So, I created some rough game graphics (which you saw in previous blog entries) and maps. Then I sent them over to Saul to improve. 

I also worked exceptionally hard on making level music in GoatTracker Ultra V1.2 and getting everything to work. Also, I was working to a deadline to get this game ready in time for the Christmas issue of Zzap! 64 Micro Action (Issue 11) and its covermount.



I did come across one major pitfall in getting the mighty big shoot ‘em up finished. That was handling the Covertbitops loader system and Exomizer level unpacking system. It took me quite a lot of attempts to finally get each level to unpack and run on the disk version of the game, and I managed it.  

I also wanted to do a multi-load tape version of the game. Martin Piper’s TapeTool was one option, but I chose Paul Hugues' Freeload at the end because it used less zero pages. Also, it did not affect the game code either. The overall result for both digital disk and tape version of Cruiser-X 79 turned out excellent. It felt like a full price commercial quality game production as you would have expected back in the late 1980s or early 1990s. It was also the very first time I ever made a huge multiload production - especially on tape as well as disk. I am really pleased with how Cruiser-X 79 turned out. The feedback was also good.




Snake VS Bomb

Now coming to the end of this year, I decided to end C64 development for 2022 with a bang. There was a competition that was run on CSDB called the “Snake Fun Compo”. The idea of the competition was to create and develop a demo, game or whatever was related to snake. Considering there have been many Snake clones launched (I specially did one as a theC64 challenge back in 2020 called the Forever Extending Hungry Snake). I wanted to make something completely different.



Hugues and I joined forces again to bring out a quality game production for the competition called Snake vs Bomb. Developed in CBMPRGStudio V4.0 with KickAssembler (and with less nuisances compared to VS Code), Snake vs Bomb was a vertical scrolling dodge and collect hi score challenge.

You played a snake that was slithering through a tunnel. Fruit and bombs appeared at random inside the tunnel. The snake had to eat the fruit but avoid the bombs – otherwise the game ends. As the game progressed, the speed of the game scroll increased levelling up in difficulty. The result turned out really nice, and no matter how simple the game was, it turned out great. The graphics and the loading screen artwork really polished the game. It was also my very last game for 2022.



… and that rounds up my productions I made in 2022. 2023 will be a tougher year, but I insist that new games will be made by me. There should be another theC64 programming challenge sometime (Where I make a production fully on RGL’s theC64), my SEUCK enhancements/tutorials and my editorial task of building Scene World will continue. Also, I aim to return to Unity and convert one of my year 2022 C64 games to the platform. Before I do that, I some books to go through. I look forward to seeing what can be achieved in 2023. Also 2022 is the year I finally realize how proud I am about myself, and my creativity - and may it continue throughout 2023.

If you would like to check out my releases (as mentioned in this lengthy blog) you can find these at:
https://richard-tnd.itch.io

I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Cruiser-X 79: The Final Battle

 Just a short entry today. It is about level 16 of Cruiser-X 79. I decided to re-use the one of the earlier level designs as a rough design (I think it may have been level 10). The design of level 16 is supposed to be the alien pirate base. There are loads of flying over deadly background tricks to be achieved in this final battle stage. Luckily there are shields to collect - but response needs to be quick before the shield runs out. At the end of level 16, I made a HQ base (the home base for the player ship) . As for the music, I have gone for a moody military style tune (no trance this time). 

There is an ending intended for the game. However this will NOT be revealed in this blog.

Well that is it. All of my rough level designs finished. I will be awaiting Saul's magic touch to the game. However it is not the end of the game project yet. I have some code tweaking to do.

Update 24th December 2022!

The game with is finished and is now officially released. You can pick up the full game absolutely free or play the game online at https://richard-tnd.itch.io/cruiserx79 

Cruiser-X 79: More bubbles

 Because I liked level 4 so much, and the bubbles scene. I decided that level 15 should feature the bubbles once more, but this time much inside a much harder level. There are some more barriers in which the ship should avoid crashing into, but as usual shields should be easy enough for the player to pick up. The shield allows the player to fly over deadly background for a temporary amount of time. 

On the music front, it is another fast paced tune, but not trance. The music sort of feels very oldschool like something you may have heard in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The idea for the music for this level was intended to sound a bit like Maniacs of Noise, but the tune plays too fast. I had to make the music fast due to the level finishing before the music loops back. The result is pretty good.

I exported Level 15 graphics into the game source. Re-configured and compiled the game to put everything in place. Then I set the game code to play level 15 after loading from disk and played the game with infinite lives. This rough level design has turned out quite well. I am really pleased with how it has turned out.

There is only one more level to design this week, before I go full on into the game code next week fixing the game bugs and adding additional elements like 'continue game', 'hi score/name entry', etc. There is one thing I am most certain about. That is completing the project in time for a Christmas release. There is still plenty of time for improvement and finishing everything off. - Unless of course circumstances beyond my control holds things back, which I hope will not be the case. :)

Cruiser-X 79: A touch of glass

I am back in action working on Cruiser-X 79. The next level is once again based in space. I wanted to make another ice-themed level for this game. I loaded up level 6's map in Charpad V2, and created a brand new map from it before adjusting the character sets to make a rough design.

Well, Level 14 is still ice themed, but this time round, it is based in space, rather than inside the original base. I wanted to make some glass windows for the base, so that it looks as if it is some kind of glass-ice base. Also I adjusted some of the background charsets to make the base look slightly different. Yet again some more deadly obstacles with an incentive have been added. This time the obstacles/full blockade is a further distance than the shield. It is up to the player to pick up the shield and try to fly over the blockade otherwise the player will die.

After completing my rough design of the game map and altered the character graphics. I went onto working some music. This time, I decided to do a spacey themed tune. It is still up-tempo, but quite moody. In some parts of the tune, there is one part which reminds me of the theme tune to the 1980s TV show, Street Hawk. But of course the music in the game is definitely not that.

After finishing the music I exported all of the charset, tiles and map data into the project source code, and then compiled and run a new D64 with level 14 added. I am very pleased with how the music turned out during play of the game build. As for the game graphics, it is just temporary until they have been given the magic touch by Saul.

There are only 2 more levels for me to design before I go back to the game code and make some minor improvements. The project is shaping up really well. I am confident that this game will be finished and released some time this year.

Cruiser-X 79 vs Spore

 Well then, another week nearly over, and the rough graphics designs and maps I have been making are close to completion. Today I focused the mid morning - afternoon developing level 13 for Cruiser-X 79. The idea this time is based inside another base, which contains spore. The spore will not be deadly for the player ship, but there are to be quite a lot of obstacles for the player to watch out for, such as the usual high walls.

There isn't really much I can talk about, where it comes to this level. Except for that things look a bit messy at the moment. However S.C should hopefully be able to tidy things up with my rough level map design.

More music has been done for this game, and yet again another up tempo soundtrack, but this time more moody, but still trance like. 

Cruiser-X 79 - Ultra Violet

 Wow, there has been quite a delay since I last did my last level design on Cruiser-X 79. Well, it was due to working between other game projects. I had the PONG jam, also Alf Yngve's Captain Ishtar project (Which is nearing to completion). Finally a secret game project I was working on for an upcoming covermount for Zzap! 64. Unfortunately the game project has been very problematic so close to the deadline. 

Anyway, moving on forward to Cruiser-X 79. This time it is level 12. It is also the return of the vegetation zone, but this time, I called it "Ultra Violet". This is because the game uses an ultra violet blue scheme instead of green. The idea sounds quite weird but the colour scheme has actually turned out quite good. Also yet again, the music for the game is trance music, similar to the style of level 5. I have added less walls for this level, as the enemies for this stage are getting quite harder and faster.

Cruiser-X 79 - Mosaics

The blog entries for this project are going to be shorter now. 

My rough design for Level 11 of Cruiser-X 79 was done this weekend. The design currently uses level 4's original graphics design, but I altered some of the game chars to make the base look different, and possibly quite smart as well. Level 11 is to (later on) contain some nice square+L shaped mosaic tiles patterns around it painted by Saul. I replaced the bubbles characters with stars and asteroids The screen shot below is my rough design for the level. 

Next I worked on the in game music. It is less trance like, compared to some of the older levels. The music is pretty moody, and has a good punch to it. Very industrial in fact.

Well, that's this level out the way. More updates to come next week, with level 12.

Cruiser-X 79: Enter the Block

 A hot sunny week, plenty of walks, except for today due to excessive heat. What better to do but relax and work on a new level for Cruiser-X 79. That is exactly what has happened on Thursday and Friday this week. I wanted to come up with a new idea for level 10 onwards for Cruiser-X 79. It is quite a deadly plot of mine. You'll see as you read on a little bit more. :)

I load up Charpad V2 and then load up level 1's graphics data. Then I save it as level 10. I saved it as Level_10-JaggedBase.ctm, which later gets renamed by myself as Level_10-BlockyBase.ctm. You will see the reason why I did this later on in this entry. The next paragraph in fact. As usual I filled the whole screen with the space background data. I then set the colour settings to a crystal blue, purple and light grey. It looks pretty nice.

The next step was to construct and design the base for level 10. I went down further to level 1's tiles and edited the base which had the jagged edges (Which were used for Level 3). The characters that form the jagged edges were transformed into nice brick like mosaics. This looks perfect for the edges. The scrolling void inside the enemy base is filled with black and blue waves. It looks really nice. Now what about the new feature in the game? Basically it is a deadly new feature, which requires skill. Some bases on level 10 (which will also feature on the remaining five levels to be done) feature a long wall across the whole base. The only way to get over that structure is by collecting a temporary shield and fly over them as quickly as you possibly can. The alternative solution will be to lose a life. There is a helpful clue in level 10 however. A skull with an up arrow warning there is danger ahead. - This will feature on another one or two levels, but the last set of levels it will not be used. It will be a test of memory.

After completing my map and scanning through the whole base inside level 10 I was very pleased with how the level looks and how it has turned out. I think with the extra touch Saul makes to the level, it will look even more marvellous. I must confess that there isn't much to be done for the charsets of level 10. They look good as they are already :)

Next I load up Goat Tracker Ultra V1.2.0 to compose some music for level 10. I decided to make this tune very upbeat and quite enjoyable. Although it is my typical style, I think it would fit very well in a space shoot 'em up. After composing the music, I tested everything on SIDPlay and then exported the music file to the binary folder in the project.

Finally I went back to Charpad and exported level 10's charset, tiles and map data into the game project. The source code gets edited to set the correct table value for the colour of the map. Also I altered the level counter routines so that the status panel can display the correct panel for each level loaded, according to the level pointer. I compile everything and test the level, and here's the result.

This is my very last WIP video for the main game as I honestly do not wish to give too much away.

I will be taking a look at the memory available inside the main game code, and see if it is possible to add a fast disk loader system into the game project, where no data gets overwritten by Exomizer's level memory packed data or other code. The disk loader I aim to use is Lasse's Covertbitops Fast Loader system, which I used for my brand new Reset Mix I Disk Menu, reserved for issue #15 of Reset. I tested the fast loader to see what would happen if I tried to load a program in VICE without true drive emulation. The loader worked nicely without fail.

Stay tuned next week.

Cruiser-X 79: Let's Rock !!!

Wow, am I really on to level 9 already? You betcha :). After completing level 8 last week. I worked on with designing level 9 on Thursday. I thought that for level 9, it would be nice to add a some new theme to the game. So an idea had come into my mind. The first half of the levels have been quite simple and involved shooting aliens and flying through bases, and hoping to avoid the enemy bases highest points.

Well, level 9's idea is similar to the first few levels, but I came up with an idea to implement even more deadly background. So that the player can easily crash into deadly terrain like rocks or similar - unless the player is carrying a protective shield (simply by hovering over the 'S' tiles). I started the level where there power ups are in place at the start of the game. Then I designed some of the background to make it look a bit like rocky terrain. It sort of uses some of the base's background character sets, and the deadly high building. I painted the blocks a little to make the deadly terrain look a bit like rocks. 

Although the graphics data that was being used for level 9 was based on level 4's Bubble World. This time round, I didn't want the bases to be bubbles based. I also didn't want the space background to become bubbles either. Instead, I chose to edit those character sets and turn those into steel saw disks. The colour scheme for the level are red, grey and light grey. The shoot-able blocks and other bits got transformed into different charset objects. After finishing the map and the design layout of level 9. I packed up everything ready for the next day.

The next day came, but sadly nothing happened that Friday. I was going to do some more work on the project on Friday, which was to work on some game music for the project. Sadly I felt unwell to be productive. Maybe tomorrow.

Saturday came by, I loaded up GoatTracker Ultra V1.2.0 to first work on some more in game music for Alf Yngve's Captain Ishtar project. Then I worked on level 9's music. It is sort of a dark, moody and industrial tune, which I felt would suit Level 9 of Cruiser-X 79. The tune is not trance this time (unlike levels 5, 7 and 8). I edited my instruments to make it sound right, then I exported the tune as SID and tested the tune. 

Once I was happy with the music, I exported it to PRG format into the game project's source code. Then I loaded up Charpad, and exported my Level 9 graphics and crunched them with Exomizer. I loaded up the source code, edited the settings and then compiled and built the project and tested the game in cheat mode. It looks pretty good. However, after Saul's magic touch to the graphics, it will look even better.

I am now going to take a short break on the level development of Cruiser-X 79. It is set to continue in about 2-3 week's time, unless theC64 challenge for Retro Programmers Inside's PONG challenge is finished and submitted to the compo. Stay tuned!!

To find out more about my progress with theC64 challenge #7 PONG 50th Anniversary game, please check out the link below:

https://tnd64.blogspot.com/2022/05/thec64-challenge-7-celebrating-50th.html

Cruiser-X 79: Lava hard work

 Last weekend I have been working on level 8, which is yet again based in space. However, I wanted to give the game a sort of a hot feeling. That's right. Level 8 is a lava base. I loaded up Charpad. I loaded up the graphics from Level 2. Then I cleared the whole screen and re-drawn the space background. Afterwards I placed in the tiles that formed the enemy base.

The next thing for me to do was to make sure that the level did not look too much like Level 2. So I edited the charset graphics and replaced some of those as new charsets. I tried experimenting with different looks for the enemy base. I decided to try and give it some hot look. I turned a few of the unused chars into plain chars, so that I could create a checkerboard effect. Also I altered the two scrolling charsets to represent the lava, which should parallax scroll with the game scene. A floor mosaic of an invader (with two high pillars) were implemented for the eyes. 

After completing my base, I worked on some music. This time, using the GoatTracker Ultra V1.2.0. Like with level 5, I thought it would be good to do an atmospheric fast thumping trance style tune for that level. I went for a traditional exotic mood inside the sound track. 

After finishing the music I exported all of the graphics data, and also imported the music into the game project source. I loaded up C64Studio and edited the level table and set the colour to match the level. The D64 building batch file got edited Then I compiled the project once more and run it to only load that level (I says level 1 on the status panel, but this is only test mode). The level loaded nicely, and the map turned out quite well.

Like with level 7, I have passed the graphics file to Saul to alter to make it look even more improved. I am very pleased with how things have turned out so far, and there is another level of Cruiser-X 79 (Level 9) I have in mind. It will be slightly easier on the game front, but there are harder aliens to come.