Cosmic Swarm (Cosmium)

Gameplay

In this Asteroids-type game for the ZX Spectrum, break open the Cosmic Eggs and eliminate the alien threat within. Beware! When the two alien types collide, they combine to form mutants that will hunt you to the death!

Keyboard Controls

1 - Rotate Left
2 - Rotate Right
9 - Thrust
0 - Fire
M - Hyperspace

Installation

You'll need a ZX Spectrum emulator to play.

Click the Cosmic Swarm.tap tape file to download the game, then start your favorite ZX Spectrum emulator and open the file to play.

Depending on your setup, you may need to type LOAD "" followed by the ENTER key to start the game.

History

Cosmic Swarm is a simple little 16K game that I wrote in 1983 alongside Megapede, Robon and Repulsar. The game was submitted for publication, but as far as I know never released and has been considered MIA, though it did appear in a few magazine ads at the time.

Like many of those earlier games it features single screen, character-based movement and was written in compiled BASIC for the 16K Spectrum. Since I have now have the source, I've recompiled it with Colt for the 48K model and added multiple key input rather than the limited single key, INKEY$-based input of the original. Gameplay remains unchanged.

I don't think it ever had a proper loading screen - at least not on the C15 tape I discovered from 1983 - so I knocked one up in ZX-Paintbrush for the occasion.