SkillGrid
A downloadable Amiga game
CATCH, DODGE AND SHOOT!
SkillGrid is an endless score-attack vertical shoot 'em up featuring frenetic, tactical gameplay and comprising of a variety of different sub-games, boss battles and sophisticated scoring mechanics.
FEATURES
- Original gameplay based on shooting at enemies and catching/dodging of cells
- 3 parallax layers (2 of which generated procedurally) scrolling at variable speed
- 1 fixed layer for the HUD and other effects
- Real transparencies with 8 bit alpha channel
- Real-time palette changes
- Beautiful tiny sprites
- Pixel-perfect collision detection
- High quality prog-rock music in the form of lossless-packed 8 bit stereo 28.9 kHz samples
- Speech warnings
- Audio channels allocated dynamically for one-shot sounds
- Variable afterburner sound frequency, depending on the ship vertical speed and the scrolling speed
- ... all running at steady 50 Hz
- Single load from any media
- Hiscore saving
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE EDITION
The PRESS PLAY ON TAPE edition is a special version whose soundtrack is the rockin' tongue-in-cheek song "Man with the Gun" by the Commodore 64 revival band PRESS PLAY ON TAPE!
PHYSICAL EDITIONS
The gorgeous physical editions of SkillGrid v1.0 have been published by RGCD.
BASIC: jewel-cased glass-mastered CD with 16 pages booklet, 2 floppy labels, RETREAM postcard, RGCD postcard, RGCD vinyl sticker.
DELUXE: clamshell box containing the basic edition plus 2 floppies, 4 badges pack, A3 poster (optionally rolled in a separate container).
REQUIREMENTS
MINIMUM: Amiga 1200/4000/CD³², PAL-capable display, stereo loudspeakers, joystick or keyboard
IF INSTALLED: ~250 kB of CHIP RAM, ~2/4.5* MB of CHIP+FAST RAM, ~2/5* MB of storage space (*PRESS PLAY ON TAPE edition)
FOR HISCORE SAVING ON AMIGA CD³²: 1 NVRAM unit
THE SAGA
SkillGrid is part of a saga that, as of this writing, includes six different games.
BOH opens the story, with the Evil Masters bringing chaos to Earth. Huenison focuses on the fight against one of them, the eponymous character. Eventually the Evil Masters were repelled, but, as seen in QUOD INIT EXIT IIo, during their retreat, Huenison and his companions happened to pass by planet Suinio and decided to cause trouble there as well. Having witnessed the Evil Masters' cruelty, the Pemkians decided develop the defense training program that SkillGrid is part of. In MAH, years later, the danger came from the Apocalypser, the weapon that had been developed against the Evil Masters and that the Purifiers activated to destroy the Earth. Finally, KOG assigns a new task to the hero who deactivated the Apocalypser.
Status | Released |
Release date | Apr 26, 2019 |
Author | RETREAM |
Genre | Shooter, Action |
Made with | Audacity, MilkyTracker, GIMP |
Tags | 16-bit, 2D, Amiga, Arcade, Endless, parallax, Retro, Score Attack, vertical-scroller |
Average session | About a half-hour |
Languages | English |
Inputs | Gamepad (any), Joystick |
Links | Patreon, Twitter/X |
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- HistoryJan 06, 2024
- v1.4Jan 06, 2024
- v1.3May 22, 2022
- v1.2Apr 12, 2022
- v1.2 PRESS PLAY ON TAPE Edition previewApr 10, 2022
- v1.1betaMar 12, 2022
- v1.1 longplaySep 27, 2021
- v1.1 in the worksSep 09, 2021