ANDY VAISEY

After revealing Chill3r in RG252, Andy is back with the Amiga puzzle game Spheroid

What inspired Spheroid?

In 2022, I finally got round to resurrecting my A1200 – it booted first time. Mounting a drive image in WINUAE, I found the source and assets – however, the code would not run. I spent a couple of days relearning Blitz Basic 2 and began coding the game from scratch, with the game engine finished in a few days. I added additional elements not in the original. Some graphical and sound assets remain as they were, pixelled and sampled over 30 years ago!

How did you design the levels?

tile images. I noted the positions of the tiles and manually typed the information into data statements. A bit laborious! Ray Lejuez of Arkanix Labs then made me a level editor in Python. Although I was still typing level data in, designing became simple and quick; some devious levels only took ten to fifteen minutes to design.

Even my eldest grandson got in on the act and designed a few levels himself, which are in the game. I made him type in the level data manually

– he is learning to code, so it was all practice really! My youngest grandson has been successfully testing and enjoying the levels produced. As he is only four, I am hoping the game will appeal to a wide audience.

And the C64 Spheroid?

<!--- [Amiga] The Spheroid loading screen by Tony Galvez, who also worked on Rogue Declan Zero. ---> <!--- [Amiga] The score panel tells you which colours are safe, but the colour switch (top right) will alter tiles. ---> <!--- [Amiga] The arrows are conveyor belts that push the Spheroid in the direction they point. ---> <!--- [C64] Early progress on the C64 version, with the score panel in place. --->