1985 · Stamper brothers · Action-adventure · Isometric platformer

Alien 8

Alien 8 is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Ultimate Play The Game. It was released for the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC and MSX in 1985.[a] The game is a spiritual successor to the best-selling Knight Lore, which was lauded by critics for its isometric graphics. In the game, the player takes control of a robot, Alien 8, whose job is to ensure that all of the cryogenically frozen passengers on board a starship remain viable during the ship's voyage.

Released: 1985
Platforms: Amstrad CPC BBC Microcomputer System MSX Windows ZX Spectrum
Genres: Action-adventure Isometric platformer Platformer Puzzle Science
Developers: Stamper brothers Aackosoft
Publishers: Rare Ltd.DROsoft Ultimate Play the Game
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action Science fiction
Engine: Filmation engine
Country: United Kingdom
Languages: English

About

Alien 8 is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Ultimate Play the Game. It was released for the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC and MSX in 1985. The game is a spiritual successor to the best-selling Knight Lore, which was lauded by critics for its isometric graphics. In the game, the player takes control of a robot, Alien 8, whose job is to ensure that all of the cryogenically frozen passengers on board a starship remain viable during the ship's voyage.

The game was written by Chris Stamper, and graphics were designed by Tim Stamper. Alien 8 uses the same image masking technique as Knight Lore, which allows the developers to create composite structures out of stacked images without visual overlay. The technique was copyrighted by Ultimate as the Filmation game engine. As with its spiritual predecessor, the game is rendered isometric projection.

Keywords

aliens
robots
spaceship
flip screen

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game is presented in an isometric format and set on board a starship. Taking on the role of the robot, Alien 8, the player must explore the large starship in order to ensure that the cryogenic life support systems preserving the biological crew are re-activated. The core of this system is a series of geometrically-shaped circuits. However, the circuits have been removed by the invading aliens and distributed around the starship.

The main objective of the game is to collect the correct circuits and return them to their respective locations before the starship reaches its destination. The circuits are variously shaped as cubes, pyramids, domes or cylinders.

Story

On a dying planet in a distant galaxy, the last of the creatures known as the "guardians" stored all of their libraries, records, and knowledge on a single starship together with cryogenically preserved members of their race. A single robot, Alien 8, is tasked with keeping the occupants of the vessel alive for the duration of its journey.

The ship is launched towards a new solar system and Alien 8 performs his task for thousands of years during the journey. However, as the ship nears its destination, it is attacked and boarded by hostile aliens. The cryogenic life support systems are damaged during the attack and Alien 8 must restore them to an operational status before the ship's automatic thrusting systems manoeuvre it into planetary orbit.

Development

Development of Alien 8 began immediately after the release of Knight Lore, in which the Stamper brothers predicted that publishers would attempt to copy Knight Lore's Filmation technology in other games. As with its predecessor, the Stamper brothers developed the game in monochrome to avoid attribute clash, a common limitation in some early 8-bit home computers. However, the Amstrad release exclusively displayed dual-colours.

In 2019 an unofficial port for the Commodore 64 range was released.

Reception

Alien 8 entered the Gallup Top 30 sales chart at number one for the week ending 19 February 1985, replacing Ghostbusters after 13 weeks. After a second week at the top, it was replaced by Football Manager.

The game was critically acclaimed upon release. A reviewer of Crash praised its graphics and presentation, stating them to be "excellent" and more "imaginative and pleasing" compared to its predecessor, despite regarding it as "only having a slight difference". Amstrad Action similarly praised the graphics, citing them as "amazing", "brilliant" and having "great" colour combinations. A reviewer of Amtix!