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Laserbirds, the new fast-paced shoot’em up for the ZX Spectrum by Bitnamic Software is now available for purchase as a digital download. Last month we talked about Laserbirds where we mention that the physical tape would be available sometime in the first half of 2020 but due to the current state of affairs the world is facing, Bitnamic has decided to start the sale of the game today, as a digital download on itch.io under its European brand, Teknamic.

The game price follows the itch.io model, where you can name your price starting from 2.99€ EUR, which will give access to the TAP file. It is important to highlight that the present version of Laserbirds was designed for the classic ZX Spectrum 48K/ZX Spectrum Plus. It won’t work properly in 128K models. ZX Spectrum clones are not guaranteed to work. The good news is that it will work on the major emulators as well as all FPGA-based machines (MISter, etc) and the new ZX Spectrum Next as long as in 48K mode and refresh rate set at 50 Hz.

This strict requirement is due to the game’s most interesting feature: the use of raster graphics with a multi-colour mode, a technique commonly used in action/platform games, but it is a novelty in an arcade title. The timing to draw the graphics and change the colours has to be perfect and precise, a feat only achievable on the 48K Speccy at 50 Hz!

My playthrough

Thanks to Bitnamic, I have access to an early copy of the game and could spend a few hours playing it to see what is all about, because so far I only had access to the same video you all watched in our previous article.

As I mentioned before, Laserbirds is a shoot’em up and your mission is to destroy aliens known as Ornitoids, a powerful enemy that has excellent earing and memory as well as great hierarchical organization capability.

The ornitoids will attack in waves and each wave will present different flying patterns and speed. In most of the waves, your ship will stay at the bottom shoot at the enemies that show up a the top but there are some variations that make the game present a nice variety that kept me engaged. For example, once in a while, you will be facing bosses, which are very large and hard to kill birds. In other times, your ship will be flying up while the birds will be coming down against you. On these types of waves, you can control your ship in all four directions, making a challenge to shoot and dodge the attacking birds.

Shooting birds and dodge bullets are pretty much the only strategies you will rely on while playing. Since the flying patterns change a lot, there is no area on the screen that you can be safer. You have to keep moving, shooting at the birds and as much as possible dodging their bullets. Laserbirds is fast-paced and hard, very hard. Your ship will be hit a lot during the waves which will reduce its energy level. If the energy level reaches zero, you will lose one of your three lives. After the three lives, it is game over.

The best way to go further in the game and reach a higher score is to make sure you don’t lose all your energy before the wave is over since at the start of a new one, your energy bar is replenished.

Although the game supports keyboard and joystick, I found that playing with the keyboard is very hard and exhausting and when you reach wave 25, the one you fly up and can move in all directions, it is almost impossible to not lose a life (or the game!). If you don’t have a joystick you can still enjoy it, but it will cost you!

In most cases when you finish a wave, the next will start almost immediately but there are some that will pause the attacks for a few seconds, giving you a chance to stretch your fingers, take a breath and go back to the battle.

Graphics/Animation

The graphics are the highlight of the game, where the multi-colour technique gives it an incredible visual. We all love the Speccy colour palette and graphic capabilities including the colour clash but it is refreshing to see how good looking and different than your average ZX Spectrum shooter Laserbirds look. First, the multi-coloured birds make you believe the game is from a “more capable” machine graphics-wise (I know I got some hate thoughts just now!). As you hit a bird, it changes its colour pattern, a very nice touch.

Another thing I liked is the way the birds show up on the screen, teleporting to its position, a clear and well-implemented homage to Demon Attack, a game written by Rob Fulop for the Atari 2600 and published by Imagic in 1982.

All the backgrounds are well-designed, with the blue skies with a nice gradient effect taking almost all the screen space, white and blue clouds and the sky-scrappers in black. At the bottom, you have the game HUD showing the numbers of lives, the current wave number and your score. Simple, but just right!

To make the graphic package complete, the loading screen was created by Andy Green, a prolific graphic artist well-known by the ZX Spectrum community.

The laser beans are also very colourful as well as the fire/explosion animation when your ship is hit.

Sounds

The intro/outro music, also created by the programmer, is great, giving the game the right mood/ The sounds during the game are average considering the 1-bit sound capability the speccy offers. The sound is different when you hit the birds from where they hit you, but because the tones used are so close, sometimes you can’t be sure you got hit just relying on the sound feedback. Not a big problem since the ship also is animated when you are shot. I think overall the sound offers the necessary to give some emotion to the gameplay.

Conclusion

Laserbirds is a well developed, fun to play game. The use of the raster graphics to add multi-colour to the objects is certainly something you don’t see all the time and put the game in a different category among other shoots ’em ups. The fact that the game is on purpose very hard can be a bit frustrating for the casual gamer, but it will for sure put the most experienced gamer to the test. I think I am average and only after two hours playing like crazy I managed to snatch the 7th place in the high score table!

Don’t expect to be on this list in your first attempt!

I highly recommend anyone that likes a good shoot’em up to give Laserbirds a try. You won’t be disappointed. You can buy the game follow the link below and if you are not able to play right now, you can watch my most successful attempt in the video below.

Link: Teknamic on itch.io