Information Archive: PLANETOID, Acornsoft

	Written by Neil Raine		Cover Art
Loading Screen	Opening Screen	Game Screenshot

"Action stations! The Aliens are landing! Flying over the planetoid surface your laser-ship speeds to the rescue, firing laser missiles and dodging the enemy and their shell-fire. Save the life-forms while fending off raiders, mutants, bombers, cruisers, spores and megacytes. Lightning reflexes are required to play this game - the fastest ever seen on a micro!

Complete with sound effects, full colour graphics and table of high scores."

Your laser-ship is patrolling the surface of the planetoid. The scanner in the top section of the screeb shows the whole planet's surface, and can be used for long-range reconnaissance. The lower part of the screen displays the section over which the laser-ship is flying.

The raiders can be seen hovering around the surface on the look-out for life-forms, which they can drag off into space. As a raider ascends with a life-form, you can destroy it with your lasers, or with the 'smart bombs' which disintegrate everything hostile within sight. Having annihilated the raider, you can intercept the plummetting life-form and set him safely back down on the surface.

If you don't rescue a life-form before the raider carrying him reaches the top of the screen, the raider will mutate. You will then have to contend with a mutant, while also being attacked by bombers, spores and megacytes; all of which are to be avoided at all costs and killed before going on to the next wave. Cruisers are also dangerous, but don't have to be destroyed before you move on to the next wave.

When megacytes are destroyed, they release a cloud of spores - use the smart bombs wisely, as you only have three to begin with.

Look out when only one life-form remains, since if the raider abducting him reaches the top of the screen the planetoid explodes, and all the raiders become mutants. However, after every five attack waves, you get a new planetoid, and a new set of life-forms to defend.

You start off with three ships, but for every 10,000 points you score, you gain a ship plus a smart bomb.

Scoring
Score 500 for each life-form caught in flight and 500 for each one safely returned to the planetoid surface.

   xxx         XXX         BBBBBB
  xxxxx       XX XX       BBBBBBB      CCCCCCC                     MM
 xx x xx     XX X XX      BB   BB     C       C        SS        MMMMMM
  xxxxx       XXXXX       BB B BB    CCC CCC CCC    SSSSSSSS    MMMMMMMM
   xxx         XXX        BB   BB     CCCCCCCCC      SSSSSS      MMMMMM
  x x x       X X X       BBBBBBB                                  MM
 x  x  x     X  X  X      BBBBBB

 RAIDER      MUTANT       BOMBER       CRUISER       SPORE      MEGACYTE
   150         150          150          150          250         1000

Bonuses for each surviving life-form at the end of each wave are as follows:

First wave	100
Second wave	200
Third wave	300
Fourth wave	400
Fifth wave	500
Subsequent waves	500

Three numbers are displayed at the top of the screen: the first shows your score and the second and third show the numbers of remaining laser ships and smart bombs respectively.

Game Controls
To manoeuvre the laser-ship, use the following controls:

                A (up)   X                     X    A (up)
                       XXXX                   XXXX
                      XXXX                     XXXX
                     XXXXX      SPACE BAR      XXXXX
SHIFT          XXXXXXXXXXXX     (reverse)     XXXXXXXXXXXX          SHIFT
(thrust)      XXXXXXXXXXXX                     XXXXXXXXXXXX      (thrust)

                Z (down)                            Z (down)

           RETURN  -  laser bolt     CAPS LK/FUNC  -  smart bomb

H - hyperspace (ship dematerialises, and materialises in another position)