Survivor

Survivor

Game No.	289
Voting	6.40 points, 15 votes
Developer	Peter Adams
Company	Synapse Software
Musician	Peter Adams
HVSC-File	/GAMES/ S-Z/ Survivor.sid
Release	1983
Platform	C64
Genre	Shoot'em Up, Multi-Scrolling
Gamemode	Single player 2 players (simultaneous)
Operation
Media	,
Language	, ,
Information	aka "Basen" aka "Batalla Estelar"

Description[edit | edit source]

The ambush was fatal. The whole space fleet from Xenogryph only waited for the moment when they could cut your star cruise alliance with their lasers into pieces. Over 100 fighting ships were destroyed by this treason and it is almost a miracle that you have survived this chaos.

Now, in view of this smothering superiority you try to judge the situation. You and your crew have to destroy four heaviliy defended space forts and as addition the whole trackers, space hunters and the missile stations. This will need all your skills and reaction, no mistakes must be made. You are the last hope...

Design[edit | edit source]

A space shooter with simple graphics but a very big game area scrolling softly into all directions. The element of the spaceships inertia was realised very well. The music and sound elements are very rudimentary though interesting. In the title screen you can hear a reduced version of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. The two player-mode is an enrichment, as you really can play together here and have to complement each other. Unfortunately, there is no highscore list, only the best score of the day is shown.

Hints[edit | edit source]

Survivor, a game for 1 or 2 people at the same time, whereby one player steers the spaceship and the second player controls the weapons, puts you into space. You mission is to destroy four space forts. These are secured with barriers that you have to overcome. But watch out for the laser cannons. When the last laser cannon of a fort is destroyed, the self destruction of the fort is automatically triggered. There are three different types of hostile spaceships. The first imitates the movements of your spaceship. The second type circles your ship and the third tries to attack it directly. You will notice that your spaceship moves very realistically, i.e. due to the mass inertia it will move a bit further into driving direction after breaking and not stand constantly still in the the room. This can have fatal consequences, if you do not take this into account.

Controls

You can steer your star cruiser alone (one player) or with the help of a gunner (2 players).

Controls in the title screen

F3 = adjust difficulty grade
F5 = number of players (1-2 players at the same time)
F7 = start game

Controls in the game

F1 = abort game and back to the title screen
P = pause on (pause off with press on fire button)

One player (joystick in port 2)

The spaceship follows the joystick movement
By pressing the fire button the spaceship fires in flying direction and also in the opposite direction (also diagonally).
By pressing the space key a space bomb is ignited.

Two players (joysticks in port 1 + 2)

The spaceship follows the joystick movement (joystick port 2)
The spaceship fires into the joystick direction and the opposite direction (also diagonally) (joystick port 1)
By pressing the fire button (or the space key) a space bomb is ignited (joystick port 1)

Solution[edit | edit source]

Tips

Use the 2-player mode even if you play alone (one joystick for each hand). In this mode you can steer the spaceship into any direction and at the same time fire in any direction independent of the flying direction. This is an enormous facilitation.

Cheats[edit | edit source]

Voting[edit | edit source]

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
6.40 points at 15 votes (rank 676). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64Games	8	13th January 2008 - "super" - 1613 downs
Lemon64	7,6	04th January 2011 - 18 votes

Reviews[edit | edit source]

Robotron2084: "A graphically very reduced multidirectional (can one say it like this?) shooter, which needs pixel exact manoeuvring but unfortunately also luck. The spacy sounds of the alien attackers do unfortunately not upvalue the monotonous happening enough to get more than 5 out of 10 points."

blubarju: "A great game to relax. The difficulty grade is not especially high and the happening in the game is also not hectical (it gets hectical only from level 4). So exactly hit the spot for me! 8 out of 10 points."