| Colony | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Icon Design [1] |
| Publisher(s) | Mastertronic (Bulldog) |
| Designer(s) | Ste Cork |
| Platform(s) | Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, MSX, ZX Spectrum |
| Release |
|
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Colony is an action-adventure game written by Ste Cork [1] and released in 1987 for the Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, MSX, and ZX Spectrum by Mastertronic on their Bulldog label.
Overpopulation has caused humanity to grow food in colonies on other planets. Unfortunately, the mushroom-growing planet that the player is responsible for is also inhabited by hostile native aliens which resemble giant insects. The player must use the droid under their control to maintain and harvest the mushrooms as well as look after and protect the colony itself.
Gameplay takes place in a flip-screen environment consisting of the colony itself (which is made-up of storehouses, some specialist buildings, mushroom fields and areas for solar panels) and the surrounding desert of the alien planet which is filled with various giant insects.
There are numerous things that the player must look-after.
The purpose of the colony is to grow mushrooms for shipment back to Earth. These mushrooms will only grow in the green (i.e. lush) areas. They begin as seeds and quickly grow, eventually reaching a stage of maturity at which point they can be collected in order to be deposited for money and later for pick-up by a spacecraft. Unfortunately, the mushrooms are one of many things that the insects like to eat. The player can pick mature mushrooms which have been partially eaten by aliens but when deposited these will award no payment as they are unfit for human consumption.
The colony is surrounded by a security fence which keeps the giant insects out of the colony and from causing mischief therein. Unfortunately, the fence is constantly under attack by the insects who can chew their way through them. The player's droid must maintain the fence by destroying the marauding insects and replacing damaged or destroyed pieces of fence. Damaged fence sections can be deposited at a fence storehouse for repair. There are three different types of security-fencing which can be used - barbed wire (which is the weakest), wooden-fencing (the default fencing-type which is already in use around the colony when the game starts) and steel fencing (the strongest fencing type).
The colony is powered by free-standing solar panels which are located within the colony. These provide power in order to recharge the droid's shields and weapons as well as for the landing beacon (required when a spaceship is about to land). Unfortunately, the insects chew these to pieces as well and can devastate the colony's power supply if not checked. As with fencing, the droid can repair damaged panels at the correct storehouse as well as find replacements for destroyed panels.
Once plenty of mushrooms have been grown and safely packed-away for pick-up the player can send a message to Earth to have a spaceship sent en route to the colony to pick up. The player can also order supplies (extra seeds, fencing, panels and other useful items) for the ship to deliver. The game provides an ETA for the ship which the player must keep an eye on. The ship requires the colony's landing beacon to be on when it arrives. If the beacon is on then the ship will land at the landing-bay (the player must not be on this screen at the time or the droid will be crushed!), drop off its crates of supplies there and pay for the mushrooms (the money can be used when next ordering supplies). If the beacon is not on, the ship will dump all the supplies at random in the surrounding desert and many of them will be lost to the aliens. The beacon drains the colony's power-supply quickly so it is important to only leave it on as long as necessary and also to ensure that the colony's power-storage is suitably high before activating it.
The player's droid can also set traps almost anywhere in the colony and the desert in order to destroy the giant insects. These traps work only once.
In addition, there are also "permanent" traps covering areas where the colony is completely open to the desert (e.g. at the main entrance, where there is no fencing). These traps always destroy insects that wander into them without disappearing. However, they are reliant on the colony's power supply and if the player allows the power to drop too low these traps will disappear.
The game received a score of 5/10 from Commodore User . [2]
The sandcrawler is a fictional transport vehicle in the Star Wars universe that is found on the desert planet Tatooine. The vehicle, as it appears in its major appearances in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, is 37 meters long and 18 meters tall. Only a 27-meter length of its lower hull was constructed as a set for the film. Other appearances were simulated with matte paintings and a remote-controlled model.
Captain Skyhawk is a scrolling shooter video game developed by Rare and published by Milton Bradley Company. The game was released in North America in June 1990 and in Europe the next year for the NES. It was also released for the PlayChoice-10 arcade machine.
Paradroid is a Commodore 64 computer game written by Andrew Braybrook and published by Hewson Consultants in 1985. It is a shoot 'em up with puzzle elements and was critically praised at release. The objective is to clear a fleet of spaceships of hostile robots by destroying them or taking them over via a mini-game. It was later remade as Paradroid 90 for the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST home computers and as Paradroid 2000 for the Acorn Archimedes. There exist several fan-made remakes for modern PCs. In 2004 the Commodore 64 version was re-released as a built-in game on the C64 Direct-to-TV, and in 2008 for the Wii Virtual Console in Europe.
Solar Winds: The Escape and its sequel Solar Winds: Galaxy also known as Solar Winds II: Universe are top-down, space-themed role-playing action games developed by James Schmalz and published by Epic MegaGames in 1993.
Thrust is a 1986 video game programmed by Jeremy Smith for the BBC Micro and published by Superior Software. The player's aim is to manoeuvre a spaceship by rotating and thrusting, as it flies over a two-dimensional landscape and through caverns. The gameplay of Thrust was heavily inspired by Atari's Gravitar.
Laser Squad is a turn-based tactics video game, originally released for the ZX Spectrum and later for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Amiga, Sharp MZ-800 and Atari ST and PC computers between 1988 and 1992. It was designed by Julian Gollop and his team at Target Games and published by Blade Software, expanding on the ideas applied in their previous Rebelstar series of games.
C-12: Final Resistance is a third-person shooter video game developed by SCE Cambridge Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation.
Delta is a horizontally scrolling shooter originally released for the Commodore 64 by Thalamus Ltd in 1987. It was programmed by Stavros Fasoulas and the music was written by Rob Hubbard. The menu-music is based on the theme of Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass and the in-game-music is based on Pink Floyd's On the Run.
Shadowgrounds is a top-down shooter for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, developed by Frozenbyte. The game takes place on a space colony on Ganymede which is being attacked by aliens. It was released for Windows on November 11, 2005, in stores in Finland and Germany, and in Spring 2006 in the rest of Europe and North America.
Captive is a science fiction role-playing video game released by Mindscape in 1990. In the style of Dungeon Master, it uses pseudo-3D realtime graphics from a first-person perspective. It was released for Amiga, Atari ST, and, in 1992, MS-DOS.
Blasteroids is the third official sequel to the 1979 multidirectional shooter video game, Asteroids. It was developed by Atari Games and released in arcades in 1987. Unlike the previous games, Blasteroids uses raster graphics instead of vector graphics, and has power-ups and a boss.
Amaurote is a British video game for 8-bit computer systems that was released in 1987 by Mastertronic on their Mastertronic Added Dimension label. The music for the game was written by David Whittaker.
Beamrider is a fixed shooter written for the Intellivision by David Rolfe and published by Activision in 1983. The game was ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit family, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and MSX.
Empire! is a space combat and trading video game designed by Andrew Glaister and published by Firebird Software in 1986 for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC.
Quazatron is an action game developed by Graftgold, and released in 1986 by Hewson Consultants. It was designed by Steve Turner for the ZX Spectrum.
Colony Wars: Vengeance is a space combat simulator video game developed and released by Psygnosis for the PlayStation during 1998, and sequel to the original Colony Wars, released the previous year. In this game, players complete space combat missions using preselected starships equipped with various weapons. The game features multiple paths of missions and outcomes, depending on the player's performance.
The Last of the Immortals is a military science fiction novel written by the Russian science fiction writer Andrey Livadny as part of his The History of the Galaxy series. The novel is also sometimes published under the name Retaliatory Strike.
Survivors is a game published by Atlantis Software in 1986 for the ZX Spectrum. It was ported to the MSX, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, Commodore 16, Acorn Electron, and BBC Micro and the Amstrad CPC (1988). It is a puzzle game based on the "rocks and diamonds" mechanics of Boulder Dash.
Alien Legacy is a sci-fi strategy game developed by Ybarra Productions and published by Sierra On-Line in 1994 for MS-DOS.
Fly Harder is a multidirectional shooter developed by Starbyte Software and published by Krisalis Software. The game was originally released for the Amiga in 1993 and was ported to the Amiga CD32 in 1994.