Jeroen Vermeulen has released another game ported to RISC OS from the Code the Classics Volume II tome from Raspberry Pi Press – the last one from that particular book, so no more unless there’s another volume – and this time, you’ll find yourself blasting aliens and saving people in Avenger.
Based on the classic title Defender (and there was a version for the BBC Micro called Planetoid) the game puts you in charge of a vessel flying over a world in which the inhabitants it are under attack from an alien horde. Your task, therefore, is to whizz around destroying the alien vessels.
Watch out, because there are a number of different types of alien, and some will mutate and become much more erratic when they’ve taken – and eaten – people from the ground.
If you manage to kill one of the alien ships that have picked up any people, those people will fall to their death – so you need to catch them, and get them safely back down to the ground.
As with the game it is based on, Avengers features a scrolling display that eventually wraps around on itself when you travel far enough in each direction, and a radar screen that allows you to see where the aliens and inhabitants are relative to your location.
When you have destroyed all of the enemy vessels on one level, the action will pick up again when the next wave attacks.
Control is via the keyboard arrows (with space to shoot), or you can use a SNES-like controller plugged into a USB port.
The game can be downloaded for free from !Store.
