Fire up your trusty Commodore 64 and grab Jason Aldred’s brilliant new shoot’em up Galencia.
For those that have been away on Mars and have just landed back on Earth, Galencia is a fast action shoot ’em up for the C64 in the mould of Galaga, but even better! Yes, it is that good that we reckon it is even better than Galaga – there, we said it.
Galencia features 50 action packed levels with asteroid fields, challenging stages, boss battles, ebb and flow difficulty curve and siren enemy with tractor beam for double ship action (Ed: oo’er!). The game includes gorgeous intro, launch and completion sequences, coupled with 6 unique SID chiptunes for your aural pleasure.
Blast-Off!
But wait, there is more! In-game options include:
- Load, Save and Reset High Scores
- Extensive CRT options including 3 levels of Starfield Brightness
- 3 different Score Palettes
- Tournament Mode
- Music and Simultaneous Sound Effects or Sound Effects only
- 3 selectable difficulty levels; and
- Pause and Quit game options
There are many great people behind great games, just like the peeps that had a hand in creating Galencia. We can all thank these talented group of people for making such a wonderful and sublime game:
- Jason Aldred: programming and graphics
- Pulsebot: all music and some sound effects
- Saul Cross: additional graphics and sound effects
- Lobo: physical artwork including box and manual
- Mark Hardisty: manual back cover illustration
- Flemming Dupont: concept art
- Jakob Chen-Voos: Protovison
Even the great Julian ‘Jaz’ Rignall gives his sizzling approval!
You can grab the digital version right now via itch.io for US$4.99 (which is an absolute steal!), or for the more traditionalists among us, Galencia will be available on physical media from Friday, November 17 via Protovision Games, just take a look at these tangible temptations:
- Cassette (without box) €10.00 – comes on a green cassette with a j-card that can be flipped around for an alternative cover picture. The tape comes in a neon green jewel case (front side is fully transparent, only back is neon green).
- Cassette (boxed) €30.00
- Disk (boxed) €30.00
- Cartridge (boxed) €40.00
- Disk and Cartridge Special Edition (boxed) €50.00
All boxed editions of Galencia will come in a fully printed cardboard box with custom inlays to hold the disk, tape or cartridge, which will also include:
- a full colour manual with 16 carefully designed pages (A5 sized),
- Galencia coaster with a scratch free glass surface,
- Bee key ring that can serve you as a trophy when you battle against vermin,
- Big Galencia sticker that you can stick on your disk sleeve if you have the disk version; and
- While stocks last – the first 200 boxed version orders will receive an additional small Galencia sticker!
With the Disk and Cartridge special edition, both physical media will be in the one box with all of the above inclusions, plus a space amulet that is much needed in higher levels of Galencia, as it has been reported to promote good fortune!
Oh yeah, the game works on both PAL and NTSC C64 computers, with all physical editions containing the tape and disk digital images. If you don’t have a C64, then emulation is fully supported through VICE.
So what are you waiting for, go and pilot the 1981 Galencia Fighter to restore order, before it’s too late!
The game is never over!
The eyes have it!
Credit where credit is due
Tough choice – will you grab Galencia on cart?
On disk?
Or on tape? The choice is yours (you can’t go wrong!)
Time to squash some bugs!
Go on, get blastin’
image source: Jason Aldred – Galencia HQ
