Neutroid Reloaded

Neutroid Reloaded is (hopefully! lol) the final say on a game concept that author Nick Marentes has been working on since his original 1983 version on the TRS-80 Model 1/3 that he programmed way back when he was 18 years old. He then ported it to the Coco 1/2 in 1984 as his first machine language game on that platform, using a higher semigraphics mode to get 9 colors and text on the screen at the same time with a higher resolution. The game featured great sound effects and fast action - but to get it to fit in 16K of RAM he ended up dropping some of the visual cues that had been present in his Model 1/3 version, making the control much harder to understand for a lot of players (including me). The games graphics broke on the Coco 3 and although a POKE could get the graphics back, the text was all missing (including the players score).

Nick revisited the Coco version for the first time decades later in 2015, which he called Neutroid 2.015. This now changed the game to allow Coco 3 players to see the graphics without extra POKE's and changed the score and high screens so that Coco 3 users could see the text as well. He also changed the control scheme from keyboard to joystick, and adjust the game difficulty ramp to be easier for a player. He released this one as freeware, and it still worked on any Coco with at least 16K of RAM.

Still not satisfied (especially with people who still didn't really "get" the game play as being too abstract), Nick decided to revamp it yet again for it's 40th anniversary. This time he brought back the visual cues from the Model 1/3 version (where the player affects the grid that steers the Neutroid, not the Neutroid itself) which was a huge improvement in itself (I finally understood what the gameplay was supposed to be) and revamped the graphics again. Dropping the original self-imposed 16K RAM limit and allowing a full 64K to be used, he added digital sound effects, new gameplay elements and new visual effects. Personally, all of this combined has made a huge improvement to the game and gameplay and it is no longer an abstract curiosity. Nick has made the new/final version available as both a digital download, and as a CD collectors edition. Besides getting a full color CD case there are bonus materials on the CD version, including all the previous versions of Neutroid (even the original TRS-80 Model 1/3 version) and cassette/wav file versions for those with cassette (like a lot of Dragon users).

Title: Neutroid Reloaded

Author: Nickolas Marentes

Publisher: Nickolas Marentes

Released: September 2, 2023

Requires: Color Computer 1,2 or 3 or Dragon 64, 64K RAM, joystick optional, disk drive optional