DEMON TRANSCENDENCE - AMSTRAD CPC 6128 EDITION

TURN-BASED SQUAD TACTICS ON THE AMSTRAD CPC!

2199. Gehenna Deep Station. The scientists built the Transcendence Engine to step beyond the edge of the world, and it tore a rift into somewhere else. Something came through.

Your squad, Ninth Sentinel, goes in to clear the station, find the survivors, follow the rift down through the labs and the hive under them, and finish it on the other side.

It plays like Rebelstar: your soldiers move a turn at a time on time units, then the demons move. A soldier with time left over fires at anything that moves in front of him. The demons are hidden until a soldier sees them.

THE ZX SPECTRUM NEXT GAME, ON THE CPC

This is the same game as the ZX Spectrum Next edition: 16 missions in four places, a comic page before each, the squad carried from mission to mission, and the same rules, numbers, demons and words. It runs on an Amstrad CPC with 128K (a 6128, or a 464 / 664 with a 64K expansion) and a disc drive.

It is a multiload. The program loads at the start, and each mission's map, each place's graphics and each comic page come off the disc when they're wanted.

SIXTEEN MISSIONS, FOUR PLACES

- The station (1-4): corridors, barracks, operations and the hangar
- The labs (5-8): portals, open cells, Dr Varga and the Engine's core
- The hive (9-12): flesh tunnels, nests, spawning pools and the Gatekeeper
- Hell (13-16): ash plains, the bone cathedral, the river of fire and the Archdemon

SPEND YOUR TIME UNITS WISELY

Steps, doors, pickups, terminals, shots and grenades all cost time units. Time you don't spend is your guard: a soldier with time left fires at demons that move in front of him.

- Fire: choose a quick snap shot or a slow, accurate aimed shot
- Grenades: a 3x3 blast, soldiers included
- Rifle butt: out of ammunition, strike an adjacent demon instead
- Weapons: rifle, shotgun and heavy gun
- Demons: imps, husks, hounds, spitters, brutes and wraiths, plus portals and nests that breed, altars, the core, the Gatekeeper and the Archdemon

THE CPC VERSION

- The game runs in mode 1 (320 x 200), with four inks per place: black, the place's own map colour (station grey, labs cyan, hive magenta, hell dark red), green for your squad and red for the demons (yellow in the hive and hell). Every demon kind is told apart by shape
- The title and comic pages are in mode 0 (160 x 200, 16 inks each), with the Next's pictures at half width and their three panels put on the screen in turn
- The map is 16 x 10 cells of 16 x 16 pixels, using the Next's art at its own size
- The Next's sound effects, played on the CPC's AY chip

CONTROLS

Q W E / A D / Z X C (or cursor keys, or joystick) - move one cell, diagonals too. Walk into a closed door to open it
N - next soldier (and survivor, on rescue missions)
F - fire. Move the cursor the eight ways, N for the next demon seen, 1 for a snap shot, 2 for an aimed shot, F or B to go back
G - grenade. Move the cursor, then G or Enter to throw (8 cells at most)
P - pick up what you're standing on
U - use the terminal next to you
T twice - end the turn

Story pages: Enter or Space shows the next panel, B skips the rest of the page.

HOW TO RUN IT

Put the disc in drive A and type RUN"DEMONTR

Requires an Amstrad CPC with 128K (a 6128, or a 464 / 664 with a 64K expansion) and a disc drive.

Hold the line. Follow the rift. Finish it.