Star Warp - Superior Software - BBC Micro - Emulated (Pantheon) - 35,700 points.

Star Warp is a through-the-cockpit-view arcade shooter from Superior Software. It was released for the BBC Micro in 1984. The author was Peter Johnson, who went on to have a long career in the games industry. After creating his own games he went on to do many conversions of Imagine / US Gold titles to the BBC. Examples include Arkanoid, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Mikie and Beachhead. After that he moved to the Atari ST and Amiga, where his most notable work was probably Robocop. He is still in the software industry as head of a company called Soluble Apps, making products for iOS.
Returning to Star Warp, this game is best described as a cross between the Star Wars arcade game and Cylon Attack. You have to destroy waves of enemy craft that are attacking your homeworld. Your crosshairs and lasers move around the screen and look exactly like the ones in the Star Wars arcade game. You don't have lives, but a shield - when that hits zero it is game over. This can be replenished slightly by reaching multiples of 10,000 points. Also, you can't fire wildly as your laser will overheat and you will be defenceless.
From a technical point of view, this game is interesting. The graphics are colourful and smoothly moving - the multiple enemy craft moving in different directions may be subtle enough to be missed by the gamer concentrating on staying alive but deserves credit for how well it is done technically. The crosshair and the laser fire are also nicely done. The star field moving towards your screen is also very smooth and quite dense, giving a good sense of your movement. The issue with the game is that it is not very interesting. Gameplay is quite simple and samey, so I just couldn't find it interesting enough to keep playing for too many goes. Overall, Star Warp is technically very good, but as a game it falls short of long-term interest.
This run was made on the 27th May 2024 using the Pantheon emulator on PC. There are no skill levels. The score reached was 35,700 points.
Time stamps:
00:30 Title screen.
00:43 Game start.
01:43 Slight increase in shields for reaching 10,000 points.
02:20 Level 1 complete and more shield increase for reaching 20,000 points.
02:38 The multicoloured 'pom-pom' alien is 'The Bit'.
02:52 Mothership appears, worth 1,000 points.
03:23 Slight increase in shields for reaching 30,000 points.
03:42 Shield reaches zero. Game Over! Final score 35,700 points.
03:49 Initials entry and High Score table.
Intro Music:
Music by: Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio
Title: Legend
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