Lander1

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Overview

Lander1 was jmimu's first try at making a Master System game, written in Z80 assembly with the help of Maxim's step-by-step introduction and other homebrew guides from SMS Power. The font comes from one of Maxim's examples, and the in-game music comes from J. Brahms.

The purpose of the game is to make your rocket land safely on the landing areas, the horizontal strips with red dots, without using all your gaz. You can try to pass every level with only one gaz tank.

Press down to decrease vertical speed and left or right to change horizontal speed. Warning: acceleration is in the opposite direction of the direction you press!

Made by: jmimu
Released: 2013

Controls guide

Flying

Button and key	Action
Down	Fire the main engine to slow your fall or climb
Left	Fire the left thruster, which pushes the rocket to the right
Right	Fire the right thruster, which pushes the rocket to the left
Pause`Enter`	Pause or resume

Between levels

Button and key	Action
1`Z`	Start the game, start a level, go on after landing, or after a crash try the same level again with a full tank
2`X`	After a crash, start over from level 1

Cheatsheet

Rules

Levels: 5
Fuel: Starts at 255; every engine you hold burns some each frame
Landing: Only on a red-dotted pad, and only while both speeds are under the limit
Hz too fast!: Sideways speed is too high to land
Falling too fast!: Vertical speed is too high to land
Crash: Touching any other rock, or landing too fast
Final score: The fuel left after level 5

Fuel between levels

After a landing: What is left carries over
After a crash: Refilled to 255, but the ending then says you were not perfect
Starting from level 1: Refilled to 255

Tips

Gravity is gentle and the main engine pushes up about twice as hard as gravity pulls down, so short taps on Down are enough to hold a steady descent and save fuel.
Land only when the warning line at the top of the screen is blank. If it reads Hz too fast or Falling too fast, touching the pad counts as a crash.
Remember the thrusters push the opposite way: to drift left, press Right. Kill sideways speed with a short opposite burst well before you reach the pad.
Every button you hold burns fuel on the same frame, so firing the main engine and a side thruster together drains the tank twice as fast.
The game checks for rock only at the nose and directly under the middle of the rocket, so the sides can brush past a ledge that looks too close.
Fuel you save on early levels is your score at the end, and a crash refills the tank but costs you the perfect run, so fly the first levels carefully.