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Spawn of Evil
World of Spectrum Details
To run in browser, via
World of Spectrum Emulator
To run the game instructions in a browser, via
World of Spectrum Emulator
Yes, this is old, very old, almost a quarter of a century when I write this. So if you play it, please remember its age... Remember that a spectrum has the fraction of the power of your mobile phone, hell it has a fraction of the power of the oldest mobile phone you can remember. This game does however have a style of game play that I haven't seen copied since and I really look for these things. The only related game I can think of is
Gribblys Day Out which was similar in that it contained evolving antagonists but lacks the hunting/farming style and is almost as old.
A place where it would fit in perfectly is in a hunting section in a harvest moon style game. So it isn't that it doesn't have the opportunity to be re-used.
Although claiming to be a 3d space action save the universe game, in actual fact the game play is 100% two dimensional.
It's also not really a save the universe game, since doing that is actually very very easy and takes roughly 10 seconds. It is more of a farming or game warden - hunting simulation.
What you actually do is seek to control a breeding population of "animals" Points are awarded for kills but you need to maintain a breeding population in order to continue the game. When you have killed everything you haven't so much won as just finished. Keeping the population high will cause you problems as they will start to attack, keeping it low will mean you run out of things to shoot. So, as with most things, balance is what matters.
This is actually described in the strategy guide like so...
The antagonists come in 4 flavours.
Stage 1 PULSOID is plankton like, small and harmless.
Stage 2 CYCLOID is worth going after but you only have a 50% chance of killing it due to its ability to deceive.
Stage 3 ALIEN is the real danger, the only stage that can damage you. Worth killing but you need to be careful.
The main aim of each of these 3 flavors of antagonist is to breed this is done by entering a breeding point with a partner these two then merge and out pops a higher level antagonist. Once you see one antagonist enter a breeding point you can hang around for another one to turn up as sooner or later that's what is going to happen.
They are of course slightly wise to this and may decide to do a runner rather than walk direct into your sights. It does however mean that the prey will at least be heading in your direction even if it doesn't end up an easy kill.
Stage 4 EGG is the breeder, the queen, if you have more than one of these then you have lost control of the breeding cycle. If you have none then you will need to let another one be created or you will run out of prey.
You move up/down left/right and shoot these prey. The main skill comes in matching velocity with your target and edging them into your sights before shooting. Random firing tends to get you nowhere.
The game is viewed in one of two modes, normal and scanner. Scanner gives you an overview of almost all the universe and helps you find targets but you will need to return to the normal view to actually shoot them.
I could go on but really if you have read this far the best thing to do is go play the damn thing.
All you have to do is click.
RIGHT HERE
But remember the author, a
Mr Don Priestly referrers to this game as too smart for its own good and it probably still is.
