BBC Micro game Defender

[JimBCameron]

Ye, no way this is running on anything other than an emulator, the aliens could be a bit 'flickery', but the sideways scrolling was always super smooth! (something equally noticeable on all Acornsoft games besides Planetoids).

[rogerjowett]

hi

[uksnootyfox]

This is Planetoid, not Defender! Greatest game on the BBC Micro (Snapper was next, a variant of Pacman). I nearly killed my BBC "B" keyboard playing this game!

[DingKong]

This was a great version of Defender - play it for yonks on my mates BBC micro. Planetoid I think it's called?

[MizHydee251]

OMG. The Williams version is waaaaaaay better. :P

BBC Micro sucks ass.

[vntr2006]

@MizHydee251 Best 8 bit micro for learning programming. Only drawback was 32k memory.

[vntr2006]

@MizHydee251 Best 8 bit micro for learning programming. Only drawback was 32k memory. Regarding your comment that the Williams version was better. Of course it was, the creators worked for them and their game had hardware totally dedicated to the game.

[JayArgonaut]

Fairly decent conversion for the time, bit on the jerky side though. I suppose the programmers hadn't quite learned how to coax the best performance out of the Beeb back then.

[dreamcastII]

@JayArgonaut This is an emulator running this. The machine itself had smooth scrolling for this. I had this and can tell.

[vntr2006]

I used to play this for hours, got 499,000 on it once. It fried my brain for a few days afterwards! lol

[Foebane72]

The Atari 8-bit (400/800/XL/XE) version was better and smoother.

[ronovision]

I was able to get 100,000+. I didn't play the original Williams Defender but I reckon the scoring system must be different, reading about the Defender scores.

Every 10,000 points you get what my brother called the "mad chipshop noise". Fantastic.

My other favourite Acornsoft game was Scramble. I could reach the end and then the game restarted upside-down.

[nyuurocks]

I have gamecube version.Pretty good storyline.

[c130dave1]

One of my few claim to fames -

I held the world record for defender when I was in the 9th grade (1982). I played for about 25 1/2 hours straight on one quarter and had a score of over 27,000,000... I know...Big deal. But that was awesome for a punk kid from Rockingham, NC. I know all the 40 somethings remember those arcade days before the atari and home video game revolution... Defender was the best game of it's time.

[alex76gr]

That is a fine and decent conversion.

Nice!

[Minttzz]

There's a fantastic bug (or possibly an Easter egg) in this version of the game. It was removed when the Planetoids version came out.

If you rescue all of your little men, there are 10 I think, but don't drop any of them back onto the ground, so that when you kill the last alien you're carrying every man, the next level has 256 little men and no aliens. It's then quite fun to blast all of your men to smithereens.

[debit256]

wtf, that last level was bullshit.

[cpmisalive]

Its what happens when all your astronauts turn to mutants. Unless you've got lightning reactions and smart bombs, you die.

[5tonyvvvv]

@cpmisalive play Lifeforce..on nes..much better.and still classic

[buttyukfoon]

anybody knows a similarm game called "stargate"

[v6pete]

Hey, some nice moves there! For me, just about the best game of that era - I recon that there are quite a few of us 40-somethings who owe the late great Neil Raine (the author of Planetoid) quite a debt for one of the best arcade conversions ever & all the fun we had playing that one back in our youth :-)

[j1mb0jones]

'Planetoids' was a way of life when I was 14! Brilliant stuff - Acornsoft produced some real gems, Rocket Raid, Elite, etc.

And for my money the BBC micro had the best keyboard ever on a computer, well clicky! :D

[dreamcastII]

some say Alligter's Guardian for the c64 was the best conversion. I have yet to see that version

[buffyguy10]

I still have a ps2 version of it. It has both defender on it as well..Its a great game..I still play this, even after 20 years..hahaha

[mermadeinheaven]

you can play it at (dot)midway(dot)com(slash)clas­sicGames(slash)defender(slash)­defender(dot)h t m l

[FloodleObb]

Planetoid is the best video game ever - once you are in the zone and tracking the movements of multiple aliens and humanoids - beautiful swooping motions - shooting aliens mixed in with humanoids - farming the aliens for max score per level and carrying all the humanoids under your ship - every game creates new patterns of craziness - nothing else comes close - except maybe chuckie egg

[BurtWilson1]

I don't know why the BBC Micro was called "Micro", it was massive.

[1981chrismartin]

Man I spent hours on this game! Wish I could play it now!

All I can remember was that space bar put it in reverse and H was 'hyper space'!

Bet that was like 20 years ago!

[SMCNI1968]

Good Lord, this brings me back a few years, thank you so much for posting. I just looked up another few BEEB games, Elite was my favourite. I think there is a huge underserved market of our age group who would like to play these kind of games/platformers with updated graphics but with similar easy controls etc?

[anyhu4u]

i played this game till i had blisters.very addictive.had to kill all my ships at the end cause at the last level anything u hit gave u a ship.and u would loose all your points

[PashedMotatoes]

Omg that game kicked my ass...

[uksnootyfox]

This was a GREAT way to wreck your BBC's keyboard! Classic game - only one I was any good at. A lot of teenage angst got realeased playing that game for hours on end!

Testiment to the BBC though, those buggers were hard-arse computers with proper keyboards!

[bolloxdude]

I admit i was pretty shitty at playing this game.

But i still loved it. It was my fav of the day.

I used to nick my uncles money and me and my cousin would go up west and play all day. That is until my uncle found out i was taking his money and pulled a knife on me.............Ha ha those were the days :)

[freshkywoo]

I had a version of defender on the c64 called guardian, it had excellent sound effects and a nice smooth scrolling screen. the bbc planetoid is a bit jittery I think. Graphics are very good. The c64 sound was always exellent since the machine had a built in 3 voice sound generator and synthesizer.

[vntr2006]

Brings back memories....spent many a teenage year playing this...got 499,000 high score. Can you remember the number of keys you had to use on the keyboard? lol

[m31030]

i have heist score in it.

[mrjaywilliams]

it is a lot slower than the original game

[cpmisalive]

That's because of the small video and the crappy utube frame rate.I've played both on a 25" monitor and they're both just as fast.Williams is quicker to pick up men but the mutants+baiters on the BBC version are faster and more deadly.The Williams version the smartbomb sends pod's swarmers to a random part of the game if it gets a bit bogged down on later levels and then fire doesn't work,smart bomb,reverse need to be hit repeatedly.They should have used interrupts,rather than polling,I guess...

[ninelivecat]

Have you ever seen Defender 2 Stargate on the Atari 2600It came out very late around 1987 I think.The 2600 was 4 bit and it was an amazing progamming achievement considering the limitations of the console

[cpmisalive]

The 2600 is 8 bit, it has a similar CPU to the BBC/Apple2/C64 etc. but cut down to only support 8kB and no IRQs! There is a good article on the Wiki about the 2600. Shame the BBC never had Stargate clone.

[ninelivecat]

cpmisalive how difficult would it be for a programming novice to code up Defender on a PC using a modern programming language such as C++ or Java.

[cpmisalive]

Depends on how accurately you want to simulate the original. The sound is the biggest problem as you'd either need to emulate the original hardware or use sound samples. The latter is much easier.

As it's not an original concept, a clone is far easier, as for a novice programmer, perhaps its the kind of project that proves your mettle.

Try something simpler first, e.g. Space Invaders then Galaxian, Pac-Man etc.

A fun project, good luck!

[ninelivecat]

Thanks , Have you played the free demo of Alien Flux.

It's an interesting crossover between Defender and Robotron 2084.The game is from Puppygames and was made in 2003.Try it out , it's quite cool.Ultratron

from the same company is quite cool also.

[ninelivecat]

Sinistar was great on the BBC Micro but this doesn't look so good.

[cpmisalive]

If you played Defender in the arcade, you'd realize the Beeb version is spot on!

BTW: Sinistar was also released under the name "Deathstar" see utube dot com/watch?v=Y2MO2lJWlY4

[ninelivecat]

"If you played Defender in the arcade, you'd realize the Beeb version is spot on!"

I have been playing Williams Defender on and off since it first came out in 1980.There where very few 8 bit ports that matched the arcade game in terms of gameplay, sound effects and difficulty.

This isn't bad but it's a long way from being spot on.

[cpmisalive]

Ok, Ok, it's not bad considering the Beeb doesn't have 48kB video RAM, the game 26kB ROM and a sound CPU. The Beeb's got 20kB video RAM,a single 6502 CPU and there's just about 10kB free of memory for the game.

It doesn't suffer from slowdown no matter how much stuff is on the screen and it doesn't forget you're pressing FIRE,it also doesn't randomly hyperspace aliens because it can't cope either...

[mrjaywilliams]

Fair enough although I did notice that the Mutants moved quite quickly :)

YOu should try playing this on MAME it is very very much like the real thing.

Suppose you know this already anyway

[cpmisalive]

I used to play it in the arcades, kinda rare to find it now. Looking around utube I'm quite relieved there are folks keeping the scene going, repairing cabinets etc. as a student it's easier to play this on an emu with limited finances and space and all that.

[paddysheep]

defender

[yugyugyugyugyug]

nice defending!

[sgorard159]

I've got a working micro and a TV but I can't figure out how to fit the cub monitor. Anyway, your better at defender than I am!

[UncleFeedle]

Neil Raine, the programmer of this flawless conversion died in a hang-gliding earlier this year. He also wrote Meteors and Hopper as well as was co-author of Magic Mushrooms.  All great games on the Beeb. Sad :(

[cpmisalive]

Yeah, I heard about that, it was in the local paper here. It also got a mention on the Stairway to Hell website.

[Ostagazuzulum]

This was called Planetoids when I had it on the BBC.

[cpmisalive]

Probably a Trademark issue, it was an extremely good rip of Williams Defender, they probably noticed and sued Acorn...

[freshkywoo]

Acornsoft first released this under the name defender, then williams electronics threatened to sue them, so acornsoft then changed the name to planetoid. There is a great defender clone on the c64 called guardian. It has better sound effects and a nice smooth scrolling screen.