Project: RE.VE.LA.TION released (ZX Spectrum)

Project: RE.VE.LA.TION loading screen — **Project: RE.VE.LA.TION**: loading screen.
earth image adapted from the “Earthrise” Apollo 8 capture. Title font: Nasalization by Typodermic.

A few days ago, NASA announced their partnership with SpaceX to land the next astronauts to the Moon; they will surely need a landing control system and a simulator, so what better time to revamp Project: RE.VE.LA.TION! 😉

Project: RE.VE.LA.TION: rocket safely landed — **Project: RE.VE.LA.TION**: rocket safely landed

Project: RE.VE.LA.TION (REmote VErtical LAnding rocket control staTION) is a Lunar Lander like videogame for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer. The object is to control the rocket descent by changing it thrust and orientation and make it safely reach the landing area, while avoiding crashing into obstacles and hitting the landing pad at too high a velocity. You have a limited amount of fuel, so must be careful not to waste it!

Project: RE.VE.LA.TION: gameplay video

I originally coded the game for the Lander Challenge, organized by the RetroProgramming Italia group. It has been mostly developed in C language and built with z88dk, using the SP1 software sprite library and the BeepFX beeper sound effects.
Due to lack of time, I could not release a full game and the version submitted to the contest featured only two levels and was missing controls configuration.

Project: RE.VE.LA.TION: one of the new levels — **Project: RE.VE.LA.TION**: one of the new levels

Finally, after more than a year, I resumed the project and after some initial rework, I added an options menu and some levels. To speed up development, for the new levels design I resorted to Tiled; although I never tried it before, I greatly appreciated its ease of use and friendliness, at least for my needs. Then, I quickly coded a .NET command line tool to convert the created Tiled maps to an assembly source code file, to be built into the project. The parser provided by the NTiled library made this task straightforward.

Project: RE.VE.LA.TION: level editing with Tiled — **Project: RE.VE.LA.TION**: level editing with Tiled

Although there is still al lot of room for improvement (for example, I would like to introduce a compressed format for storing more level maps in memory and add background music), I think the result so far is enjoyable, so time has come for the 1.0 release!

As usual, the project is hosted on itch.io and you can either download Project: RE.VE.LA.TION or play it in your web browser. Any feedback is welcome!

Happy landing!

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