Swarm 16k

Swarm 16k is a Real Time Strategy game for your Commodore 64. The game engine balances a good gameplay experience with pushing the limits of C64 to project and control over 200 units in real-time.

Plot

Each star in a galaxy is a sign of wonder, each grain of stardust is a wonder in itself. And with the League of All Kronosights, you shall own the space. As the commander of Kronosights Research And Conquer department, your aim is to conquer the unknown areas of the Atlasia galaxy.

You have to know more before we start... Kronosights, the earthlings who were banished from the planet Earthia in 31st century, found the space to be their new home. They were expanding through the vast space using resources extracted from asteroids. Only few people remember days - and probably only from the Krono-machinaeteevee-stories - about first Kronosights who discovered chemical elements never seen before in the place from where their families came, the Earthia.

Discovering new resources and exploring new ways of utilizing them sustained Kronosights for centuries... but by entering the Atlasia Galaxy, they met an opponent they didn't know. Kronosights prosperity was no longer a sure thing.

Your goal is to take control over the area which contains up to 8 asteroids, and where you have to fight against the alien race you never met before. The location of asteroids is unknown each time you enter the area: be careful each time you embark on your resource-saving mission.

Title screen

Hit RETURN on the main screen to start a new game.

Space area

On space area you see your units and asteroids and also enemy objects as long as they are in the range of your radars. Game uses fog of war concept which means that only by discovering the space area you can find enemy or neutral asteroids.

WASD keys - use to control the cursor and move the space area screen in all 4 directions

RETURN key - enables cursor in "blue" select mode, selects in "red" command mode

When cursor is in "blue" select mode:

- when hitting RETURN over the asteroid you'll enter an asteroid

- when hitting RETURN over a ship you'll activate the unit into "red" command mode

- by keeping RETURN key pressed and moving with WASD keys you can choose more units

- with "ESC" key (left arrow) you can cancel select mode

When cursor is in "red" command mode:

- you can select target or destination by hitting RETURN again

- with "ESC" key (left arrow) you can cancel command

C - centre over the selected ship units

N - switch to the next ship unit

1 - 8 keys - when you will discover an asteroid, its location will be assigned to one of eight numeric keys so you can easily switch through them. It works not only on the space area screen, but also you can switch between asteroids from the asteroid menu

P - pause the game from the space area screen

Asteroid menu

Entering an asteroid is possible by hitting RETURN key over the asteroid in "blue" select cursor mode.

A, D keys - choose option

RETURN key - select option

ESC to go level up (or use Exit option)

1 - 8 keys - switch between other asteroids you own

Warping

Here you can manage to warp new ships from the League Of All Kronosights. Gate will open in surroundings of the asteroid by choosing "warp" option. You can select from Kronosus and Daedalus which is twice more powerful than the first one. Thanks to the recent improvements, our warps are almost instant. However, gate cannot be opened if space around the asteroid is taken by another ship. Please keep a centre of any asteroid clear.

Mines

By entering mines menu, you can build a mine for one of the following resources: 

- Perilium 2: 1 unit = 2 Z credits

- AMK Y: 1 unit = 4 Z credits

- Kynxal: most desired, 1 unit = 8 Z credits

The first number next to the mine indicates the number of mines build, the second one stands for the available known resources. E.g. 12/17 means that there are only 12 mines in operation as this is the amount of the available resources at the moment out from 17 mines built in total. The available resources may vary during the game. 17/17 means that probably there are more resources available but you might know that only by building another one.

Shield

You can build a magnetic shield to protect your asteroid from being taken by the enemy. If shield is present, enemy has to destroy the shield first to conquer an asteroid. You can repair your shield by enabling repair mode but be careful as it's quite expensive. Once the shield is repaired fully, repair mode is switched off.

Game mechanics

Units fight automatically so you cannot target individual enemy ship, however they will do the best to cross fire over a single unit in the way it can be eliminated as fast as possible.

Mines can deplete or new resources can be found.

More to discover, more fun!

Technical details

- Ability to control up to 100 ship units at the same time thus name of the game! Enemy opponent controls another 100 ship units in real time

-  In the worst case for all 200 ship units, operation update cycle can take up to 2 seconds, but on the average this time is half a second

- Enemy opponent AI controls the balance between building mines, conquering asteroids and making efficient attacks

- Using double buffering to project ship units and asteroids gives result of 10 FPS

- Ability to select multiple ship units at once in "stretchy" selection box

- Only 69 bytes left free after using Exomizer 2 and even that was possible after a shuffle of functions layout to fit the game in 16k

From author

Enjoy the game! Feedback is more than welcome! It was hard to fit this game in 16k using Exomizer2 packer so few more features and ideas are not present in the game as planned, but this version is still fully playable :).

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