Denial

New Fix release of Survivor RUN.
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2023/09/survivor-run/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/commodorevic20italia

Wow Marco, a big GRAZIE to you, to the author Steven Yaeger, and to Marco Cappellari for having revised the game.

Another gem coming out of nowhere!

As the text says, it could have been and instant classic, had the software house decided to release it.

So, thanks again for that. I'll fire up my VIC ASAP

Amazing thank you for the game

Good news. We will play the game and mention it in our magazine's Fresh News section.

If this game had been released and I had played it back in 83-84, I'd have been very impressed and probably ranked it equal to Choplifter in wow-factor. But unlike Choplifter, I don't think I'd have enjoyed it. It is just much too hard.

It is incredibly difficult to burn your way through the floors. It can be done with a sweeping swoop, perfectly timed, but even with no heat seeking missiles around, I managed about 10% of my attempts.

Bombs make it easier of course but they are in a very limited supply (and why do the bombs not always blast through completely - physics?) And when you do manage to reach the survivors, you'll find you'll often miss them and are automatically flown back to the surface without survivor, points, or a bonus bomb.

I imagine the difficulty would have been adjusted before an official release. Just lowering the gravitational acceleration a tad would probably fix most of it. Extending the range of the vertical thrusters would probably fix the rest.

That would have made this a Vic classic in my opinion, because a lot is going on here and it is technically very accomplished. And the title screen is super cool!

Very stylish animated intro screen. I have never seen anything like it on Vic. In-game graphics are great too with good use of multicolor for "sprites" and explosions. Way too hard, but the combination of the barrier destructive capabilities of bombs, thrust, and enemy missiles hint at potentially complex mechanics.

Perhaps a shield-meter for the player ship and the possibility to cross the not fully opened floor barrier, while taking some damage, would help. In that way you could decide to quickly escape the missiles. It would also help a lot if the missiles were less precise and could hit the side of the crater (just like player ship can).

Oh, according to the programmer's readme/instructions, the missiles can hit the wall and even hit & destroy an enemy base! I did try, but was not successful.

He also writes that he does not remember if they can hit the floor. Well, they can! And in the process they do destroy a bit of the barrier floor (as I wrote above).