SURVIVORS
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Converted by Urusergi


Controls
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d-pad = Move the selected droid
J1B1 = Swap droids
Pause button = Pause game
Pause button twice = Suicide (loose a life and restart current level)


Modifications for the GX4000 version
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    - Modified text on instruction screen for joypad control,
    - All game keys patched,
    - Message "Survivors is loading" at launch removed,
    - A version offering a new color scheme,
    - Wait for fire on title screen,
    - Pokes : Unlimited lives, energy and time, level selector.


About the game
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In 2023, The game was reviewed on the Youtube Channel called "Robert's Retro-Gaming". The creator of the game on Spectrum, Glynn Carey, had a comment and some questions was asked to him. Here is the result of this sort of little interview:  

Glynn Carey: Hi, I was the original programmer of this one, on the ZX Spectrum. I didn't do the ports, so I can't tell you who programmed this version. My original just went to Atlantis in 1986, I got paid £400 for it. They asked if I wanted to program the ports for the same price but I only knew Z80 (which I think the Amstrad and Atari had actually) and I woulda had to buy the computers etc. tbh, they got the ports out quite quickly, I think it was ported over to about 7 computers.

Robert's Retro-Gaming: It’s always great to hear from the original programmers of the games! Thanks for getting in touch. I enjoyed your game, and I could see going back to it in the future, especially on the ZX Spectrum original.

GC: Thanks, it's really nice to see it still being played. Oddly, I think it's better now than it was then. Back in the day it was a fairly poor game, poor graphics, hardly any sound, nothing new. People wanted graphics and playability back then. But nowadays, it still works as a puzzle game due to the 3-droids idea and people like puzzles. Originally I just had one droid doing all 3 jobs, like in Boulderdash and it was truly awful, I doubt it would have been accepted. But the 3 droids made it unique so it kinda works

RRG: That idea has certainly been used since then, but I don’t think it had been done much (or at all?) at the time you wrote this.

GC: I'd only seen it in Boulderdash, but a few others might have been around. I wasn't a huge fan of BD, but I did like it. I was trying to learn Machine Code and the way the map scrolled seemed like an interesting thing to clone, then I just continued from there until it was finished (took about a year but I was learning as I went along and frankly, playing more games rather than programming most of the time!)

RRG: Cool! I did mean using multiple droids to do the different jobs, not sure I saw that in earlier games.

GC: Oh ya, it was certainly a new idea to me. A few games had probably done it and I remember a few afterwards that had multiple units to control but for Survivors, I came up with the idea myself. I still remember it, I was on my way to school at the time and it was a real Eureka moment :)

End of transmission.
