Galencia is a Galaga inspired space shooter published by Protovision and released in 2017
for the Commodore 64.
It features an impressive 50 waves of enemies, including asteroid fields, challenge screens
and boss battles.
Galencia also sports six unique SID tunes.
It was programmed for NTSC as well as PAL hardware specifications.
The main differences are as follows.
In the NTSC version, the information that was presented in the top row of the screen
has been shifted to the bottom row, including the ships remaining, score, and time remaining.
Also the other key difference is that the NTSC version plays faster due to some technical
differences.
The games programmer, Jay Aldred, stressed to me, Galencia was initially written in PAL
format with NTSC added toward the end of the project.
For the purposes of this review I will be demonstrating the PAL version and I'll be
referring to Jay Adred as "Jay".
NTSC screenshot You play as fighter pilot Ace Harper, tasked
with saving the world from an invasion of bees.
You are secure in knowing your colleague Amy Starbanger is on the Comms.
She will occasionally chime in with a game tip here and there, temporarily replacing
the games score at the top of the screen with her message.
Galencia has a terrific back story which I'll read from the manual here:
Three million years ago a devastating civil war on the planet Yenoh almost wiped out the
population of bees from the universe.
With only a few hundred bees alive the Guardians (giant queen
bees) had little choice but to abandon their home planet and rescue as
many infant bees as possible from extinction.
A hundred bees left Yenoh under the protection of the Guardians looking for
a new home where they could live in peace.
The Guardians scoured the universe for the perfect habitat many planets
were either too hot or too cold but eventually the Guardians found a world with the perfect
habitat earth.
The bees quickly settled into their new home pollinating
Earth's flowers and producing their delicious honey.
Happy that the bees were now safe the Guardians left earth to find their own home
in a distant corner of the universe.
For millions of years the bees lived in harmony with the rest of the natural world.
They witnessed the dawn and death of the dinosaurs and the birth of mankind.
The bees were a little wary of man as he was a destructive creature
with a desire for power and a hunger for honey.
But for thousands of years man and Bee lived happily side by side neither
posing a threat to the other.
It wasn't until the later years of the 20th century that things begin to change.
Environmental damage caused by mass deforestation and pollution destroyed more and more of the
bees habitat while powerful farming pesticides killed millions
of beads on a scale not seen since the time of the war on Yenoh.
Within decades the bee population dropped by 50% and as the 21st century arrived the
decline continued at an alarming rate.
By 2017 only a few thousand bees remained news of their near extinction spread across
the universe and on Nitram, a far-flung planet
on the outer reaches of the galaxy.
The Guardians heeded the call.
Within 24 hours swarms of guardians had attacked human settlements across earth London Paris
Tokyo and New York were hit by swarms of killer bees which left thousands
dead.
A global emergency was called and world leaders agreed that an
armed and manned rocket ship would be launched from the ISS its mission would be to attack
the guardians who were gathered in space just outside the Earth's
atmosphere.
A crack team of military experts were assembled by amy
Starbanger a renowned NASA scientist other than science a meal of three things more than
anything else in life her pet monkey boo classic 1980s video games
and bad jokes laced with innuendo.
Inspired by the legendary 1981 class fighters Amy quickly designed the Galencia
rocket ship Galencia was cutting-edge military technology and required a pilot
of outstanding skills to fly it.
There was only one man for the job Ace Harper.
Ace had a glittery metal collection of fearless reputation and most
importantly he was the greatest fighter pilot that ever lived.
The call went out an Ace agreed but insisted that his
lucky mascot his pet dog Roxy could come along for the ride.
Amy accepted.
Ace was handed the keys to the Galencia and told
to get out there and save mankind now it's all in your hands commander.
If there are any fans of bees out there, this story would be tough to come to grips with.
I mean, I sort of feel for the bees, but we mustn't let them destroy ALL of mankind!
Upon firing up Galencia, you will be presented with a Protovision introduction and accompanying
music.
This is followed by yet another nice piece of artwork with the games name prominently
displayed and the word "Protovision" displayed in the bottom right corner.
This screen plays a realistic sound of bees in a hive.
This screen is followed by yet one more screen with images of what looks like a boss mothership
ship bouncing up and down hovering above a bee with the games narrative scrolling across
the bottom of the screen.
It appears as though this screen can only be skipped by pressing fire on a joystick
plugged into port 2.
Your colleague "Amy" will show up from time to time to give you some helpful tips.
She does this on the title screen to let you know to hit "F1 for Options".
Doing so will take you to the options screen.
The following options are available:
Starfield shade - You can select between color, duo or mono options.
This option will adjust the brightness of the background starfield simulation present
in the game.
This was an issue for some players who complained of not being able to properly discern between
the background starfield simulation and the enemy bombs being dropped.
I often play using "mono" mode.
Score Palette - Your choices are Arizona, Liquid and Platinum.
This changes the color scheme for the score and timer number fonts.
Arizona is shades of red, Liquid shades of blue, and Platinum is shades of grey.
The next three options pertain to the score table.
You can load your saved scores from disk, Save your high score table, or even reset
the high score table.
The game will by default load in the current high score table into memory.
The cartridge version also supports loads and saves.
You can toggle the "in game" music and tournament mode.
Should you decide to leave the in-game music on, the games other sound effects will still
play.
The tournament mode is an option which when active will eliminate the possibility of earning
bonus ships for the entire game.
This is an extreme challenge.
To begin the game, press fire on your joystick plugged into port two.
This will initiate an animation sequence showing you and your dog walking to your ship.
You play as Ace Harper, a 45 year old former patrol leader, and "the greatest fighter pilot
that ever lived".
Controls: Keyboard controls:
F1 will bring you into the settings from the title screen only
The game can be paused by pressing the space bar and resumed by pressing "Fire" on your
joystick.
Pressing "Q" on the keyboard will quit the current game.
Joystick Control The game is controlled via a joystick plugged
into port 2
Gameplay:
In Galencia, the game play is similar to Galaga.
You control a ship at the bottom of the screen which can only move horizontally, and can
fire missiles.
The aliens, which also look like bugs, fly in formation at the top of the screen.
They zip down in attack patterns, fire at you, and can try to capture your ship.
Interestingly when the Bees attack, they turn over at which point in my opinion they sort
of resemble clowns waving at you wearing a little hat.
You are granted 69 seconds per round which is tied to your bonus upon level completion.
In each round the enemies line up in formation at the top of the screen which you must destroy.
Part of what I love about Galencia is the rhythm of the enemy formation, how gracefully
they fly and zoom back and forth.
It really is mesmerizing.
You'll notice the aliens never leave or enter the screen from the top or bottom.
They always enter from the side of the screen.
Jay had mentioned in his developer diaries that this was due to some technical limitations
of the sprite multiplexer utilized for the game, more on that later.
The enemies will attack your ship by flying down, attempting to crash into your ship as
well as by dropping bombs.
The primary enemies in the game are the "Bees", which change shape when they are in attack
mode.
The "Sirens" sort of look like half bug half women.
When they attack they have the added ability to throw down a tractor beam which can capture
your ship.
Once captured, assuming you have a spare ship you can free up your captured ship by destroying
the Siren.
This will enable double ship mode with the added benefit of double firing.
However as in Galaga, you can accidentally destroy your own captured ship, so you have
to be careful.
Do not destroy the Siren when it's in formation with your captured ship.
This will destroy your ship as well.
Bees, if left too long on the screen can turn into what are called "Hunter Killers".
Once transformed they will zoom down for an attack and will bounce up and down in the
direction of your ship while firing.
They can be extremely deadly.
Bees can also transform into three separate "Bouncers".
This really looks like spontaneous combustion.
All three Bouncers will zip straight down then disappear after a while.
These bug transformation features I believe are an homage to arcade Galaga which does
something similar, but resemble flowers.
Upon level completion your military rank which displays on the bottom right, will advance
by one.
This is another homage to Galaga and is a good way to keep track of how far you progressed
within a game.
As you advance further into the game, new enemies will appear.
Every four rounds there is a skull round.
As is the case with the bee rounds, the skulls vacillate between shapes.
They start out as a skull looking shape then switch to another shape which sort of resemble
bunny rabbits.
In these flying Skull rounds there is a new feature introduced, barriers.
The barriers block your shots giving the skulls time to complete their formation.
They can be destroyed and will eventually go away on their own.
At first you only see these barriers in the skull rounds but in the later rounds 35 and
up, they show up more frequently even in the Bee rounds.
The next new enemy introduced starting in round 31 are called "Hybrids".
They sort of look like flying crabs.
As you play, you will notice the enemies are color coded.
Their color denotes their physical strength.
The darker they are the weaker they are, requiring fewer shots to destroy.
For example the white skulls are much weaker than the green ones.
Brighter colors equal harder to kill.
There is a countdown timer on the screen, bottom center.
Should you successfully destroy all the enemies with time left over, you will be awarded a
time based point bonus, 100 points per second remaining.
When the timer reaches 30 seconds, they will call in four reinforcement bees and if the
timer is completely depleted to zero they will call in eight reinforcement bees.
This helps to bring life to the game and keep it challenging.
After destroying all the enemies on the screen you proceed to the next round.
There are fifty of these rounds.
Included within these 50 rounds are four challenge rounds, four asteroid field rounds, and two
boss rounds.
Rounds Layout
Rounds Description Rounds Description 1-3 Galaga Style RoundsClear all Bugs 26-28
Galaga - Clear all Bugs 4 Skull Round 29 Skull Round
5 Challenge Round 1 30 Asteroid Round 3 6-8 Galaga - Clear all Bugs 31-33 Galaga - Clear
all Bugs 9 Skull Round 34 Skull Round
10 Asteroid Round 1 35 Challenge Round 3 11-13 Galaga - Clear all Bugs 36-38 Galaga
- Clear all Bugs 14 Skull Round 39 Skull Round
15 Challenge Round 2 40 Asteroid Round 4 16-18 Galaga - Clear all Bugs 41-43 Galaga
- Clear all Bugs 19 Skull Round 44 Skull Round
20 Asteroid Round 2 45 Challenge Round 4 21-23 Galaga - Clear all Bugs 46-48 Galaga
- Clear all Bugs 24 Skull Round 49 Skull Round
25 Boss Round 1 50 Boss Round 2
When the games ends, the words "Game Over" is display in really large green textured
letters.
I love the fact that there is a mission debriefing screen after the game ends.
Here, the mission time is displayed along with the number of shots fired.
It also displays the military rank number you earned along with your "animal rating".
All nice touches.
The "animal" rating for Rank 1 is "NEWT", rank 2, "Deer", rank 3, "Turkey".
Should you make it all the way to round 50 and successfully defeat Boss #2, the game
will end and you will achieve the top rank of 51.
If you die on round 50 your rank will be 50.
Gameplay Modes:
In Galencia there are three game difficulties (E)asy, (N)ormal and (P)ro.
There is also a tournament mode which when activated will allow you to play the game
in any selected difficulty.
Tournament mode means you only have the ship or ships you started with for the entire game
and are not awarded ANY bonus ships.
The high score table displays the top five scores achieved, along with the players initials
and highest rank earned.
Just right of the initials is a letter.
This letter denotes the game difficulty, "E" for easy, "N" for normal and "P" for pro.
Just to the right of the score, a "T" will be displayed if the score was achieved in
Tournament mode.
I am thankful those two letter denotations were added to the high score screen, but if
you're going to play some serious tournament mode games, you would definitely need to reset
the high scores since attaining a high score is significantly more difficult in tournament
mode.
This is a minor nitpick, but I would have preferred separate score tables for each difficulty
and tournament mode, similar to how it was implemented in the recent release of Super
Cobra Arcade on the Atari 2600.
If you select "Easy" difficulty you will start with double fighters.
The enemies fly in easier to avoid patterns and they fire back at you less often.
"Normal" is the default game mode.
You start with a single fighter, standard enemy flight patterns and they fire at you
frequently.
In "Pro" mode, you start with a single fighter.
The enemies have much more aggressive flight patterns and are quicker!
They attack more often than "normal" mode.
Keep in mind regardless of the difficulty selected, the game has a built in difficulty
ramp up as you progress through the rounds.
I am not privy to the exact algorithm, but the game has a difficulty ebb and flow.
Jay sent me this highly technical diagram to try to visually illustrate it.
Scoring:
The score table display illustrate the bees in formation are worth 150 points each.
The attacking bees are worth 250, while the Sirens are worth 500 points each.
Although these are the main enemies you fight throughout the game, these are not the only
enemies or obstacles that will gain you points.
There are additional enemies in various rounds, challenge stages, asteroid challenge, boss
battles, skulls and promethean stars which show up in the asteroid field challenge rounds.
Here are a few more items not listed in the score table:
Skulls in formation - 100 Skulls attacking - 250
Skull Barriers - 250 Hybrids in formation - 100
Hybrids attacking - 250 Boss Battle - lightning bolts - 100
Boss Battle - destroy boss - 30,100 Bouncers - 250 points
Hunter Killers - 250 points Asteroid Field, all objects - 250 points
Promethean stars - 10,000 (By touching only, 250 if destroyed)
You are also awarded a bonus ship every 100,000 points.
Challenge Stages:
The challenge rounds are similar to that of the first challenging stage in Galaga.
They occur in rounds 5, 15, 35, and 45.
The main difference being when you successfully destroy all the enemies in a challenge round
you are awarded either a spare ship, a double fighter, or a point award.
In Galaga, I believe you received a point bonus.
Also you do not have to remain directly in the center of the screen to achieve a perfect
score like you do in Galaga.
If you succeed in the challenge, a giant red heart drops down and is absorbed by your ship.
The following round, Amy chimes in "is that for me, How romantic".
Should you fail to defeat all the enemies in the challenge, not only do you NOT get
an award, you are also chastised by being told to "try harder next time".
The asteroid field challenge rounds are original, fun, and should be something to look forward
to.
They occur on rounds 10, 20, 30 and 40.
The real goal of these rounds are to capture the promethean stars.
You have 54 seconds to grab as many as possible.
They are worth 10,000 points each.
You earn the bonus by touching the star to your ship not by destroying it.
If you are skillful you can rack up a bunch of them quickly to earn yourself a spare fighter
or two.
You have to be careful though because the asteroids are deadly.
I found that moving twin ships in these rounds was not that much of a hinderance, however
it does make you a bigger target.
Boss Battles:
Just making it to a boss battle is a major accomplishment.
There are two boss rounds in Galencia.
The first one occurs in round 25 and the last one occurs in the final round of the game,
round 50.
In the Boss rounds you battle a giant queen bee who hurls lightning bolts down at you
once in a while.
The timer is set to 55 seconds and she has a health meter at the top of the screen which
looks a lot like, "beads", did you catch that, "bee ds".
The queen has a few tricks up her sleeve including the ability to conjure up what look like two
vertical lasers swords.
She is not that difficult to defeat, it just takes a lot longer because she can absorb
a lot of hits.
You have to outlast her.
Strategy: The manual attempts to give you some tips
in the form of questions.
Is it better to clear the screen quickly and reap the timed bonus or take your time to
maximize your points by being methodical?
Should you go ahead and double up your ships or wait until after the asteroid field wave?
The manual then sprinkles in this question.
Is it best to clear the bees by columns or by rows?
Are there hidden bonuses to discover?
Such a tease.
The manual goes on "There are lots of things happening under the hood and careful observation
will help you learn the secrets of Galencia".
Jay mentioned there are some hidden bonuses, but they are not highlighted within the gameplay.
This makes it difficult to tell when they are earned.
My strategy tips are as follows: Take advantage of the continuous auto fire mode by keeping
the fire depressed.
In general, try to clear out either the left or right side of a round first, before going
to the other side.
Do not attack the enemy when they are moving downward.
Instead wait until they are moving up, or in formation, then make your attack!
On the rounds with skull barriers, I like to destroy them right away, but they will
self-destruct after a while.
On the skull rounds, eliminate the white skulls, the low hanging fruit, and get them out of
the way first.
Time your attacks to coincide with when the enemy attack stops.
Eliminate the Siren as soon as possible especially on the later rounds as they have rapid fire
and are deadly.
Graphics: I love the graphics in Galencia.
I mean before you even start the game you see the polish creeping in.
You have the three intro screens which are awesome.
You have the great introductory sequence which plays when you start and another one when
you finish the game.
The fighter ship you pilot looks straight out of Galaga which is sweet.
The enemies are multicolored and finely detailed.
The Siren look like flying female bees, and how can you not love the ebb and flow of the
enemy formation?
There's a lot of graphical animation thrown into the game which can be taken for granted
such as when the bees or Sirens turn over and attack.
They are also animated in all of their configurations, when in formation, or attacking.
The tractor beam is nicely animated.
There's an animated explosion when you lose a fighter.
On the main title screen, the games name "Galencia" is spelled out with nice graphics in which
the letter "A" has a tail which if you are watching closely you will notice it furl and
later unfurl.
Also the name Galencia is split in half horizontally, with the top half yellow and the bottom half
green.
These colors toggle periodically.
In order to maximize available real estate on the screen, the score and timer values
have been placed in the border areas of the screen.
There are options which allow you to change the color palette of those numeric values.
You will see an animated image of "Amy" chiming in from time to time telling you that you
can press "f1 for options".
Let's not forget about the animation where Ace Harper is running out to the fighter ship
with his dog , Roxy, in tow.
Also on the title screen you will notice a horizontal black line running down the screen.
This effect did not happen by accident, nor was it as a result of the star field simulation.
It was done intentionally with sprites.
Speaking of the star field, this is another example of the kind of detail that make the
graphics so great in this game.
This is no ordinary star field simulation.
You can adjust the colors of the simulation.
A lot of thought and detail went into its design.
If you would like to learn more about the star field simulation, check out my recent
video in which I attempt deconstruct it through looking at the programs source code.
Graphics Technical Note: Nearly everything you see moving around on
the screen, the bees, the siren, all the missiles, are accomplished by using sprites.
Sprites are graphical elements which can be moved around independent of other graphics
or text on the screen.
Jay used what is called a sprite multiplexer in order to make this game work the way it
does.
The multiplexer is software that enables more than 8 sprites on the screen at the same time,
a hardware limitation of the Commodore 64.
In fact with all of the enemies present on the screen firing at you and with you firing
back, including the score and timer indicator sprites, the multiplexer allows up to a maximum
of 48 sprites on the screen at any given time.
To me, this is amazing!
Jay conveyed, the multiplexer uses the background interrupt to achieve this goal.
The background star field simulation is not a part of the background interrupt in Galencia.
Instead, Jay says he makes a call to the star field code every single frame, 50 times per
second in PAL systems and 60 times per second on NTSC systems.
Sound: There are very few things that can single
handedly propel a game into greatness.
Music and sound effects can do just that.
In Galencia there are a total of six complete SID tunes or music tracks.
These are extremely catchy and so far have not got on my nerves like some sound tracks
do.
I really enjoy them.
The sound effects are also nicely done.
There's a sound for firing, enemy fire, destroying the enemy, dying, tractor beam, being captured,
a sound for bonus awards, text transmissions from Amy, shooting the promethean star, and
rank being displayed.
To me, the most amazing part of the music and sound is the fact that they were designed
by a sixteen year old gentleman who goes by "pulsebot" or "Highway Guy".
It's great to see young people getting involved and making contributions to the retro gaming
scene.
For the most part the sound system is seamless.
These effects play on top of and compliment the background music.
Ideas for Galencia 2.0:
For the next version of Galenica I would like to suggest the following:
It would be neat to have some power ups once in a while.
These power ups could grant rapid fire, shields, new missiles, or even temporary invincibility
would be sweet.
I definitely would like to see more types of bug enemies introduced along with new resting
and attack formations.
The more the merrier.
I'd like to see an in game method of toggling the music.
A bonus granted for the number of ships you have left at the end of the game would be
nice.
On the mission debriefing screen I would like to see the number of hits and hit ratio added
to the statistics.
These were my idea's, I'd be interested to hear what ideas you guys can come up with.
World Record(s): Over at twingalaxies.com there are no world
records listed for Galencia.
Over on Highscore.com, there is no entry for Galencia, but I did request it be added a
few weeks ago.
Over on cbm8bit.com there are a few incredible high scores.
The highest score voted legitimate is 1,068,800 by naufr4g0 on May 9th, 2017.
https://cbm8bit.com/highscores/game/c64/?game=Galencia
Packaging: The deluxe version of Galenica is beautifully
packaged.
I bought the deluxe cartridge version but what I received was much more than what I
expected.
All of the content is enclosed in a nice box which even has a humorous message about how
to operate the toilet in zero gravity.
You can tell, just as polished as the game is, the packaging has followed suit.
Contained within the package was the a really nice glass coaster with an image of the game.
Along with the cartridge, It contained a diskette version of the game, a keychain with a bee,
and even a really nice neckless.
The neckless looks like earth with the Sun coming up behind, Or is it Yenoh, where the
bees originated?
To top it off there are the professionally printed manual and posters.
I believe this quote from Jay says it best:
"We believe Galencia sets the new standard - double thick walled box (really rigid and
heavy) - full colour printing throughout including under the lid and the side walls of the box
(the part with the review quotes) custom cut velvet covered inlay (where the cart sits,
this is different depending on the version you buy) the amount of extras, the full colour
illustrated manual - all combined we believe this is the best C64 packaging right now!"
Ports: Currently, Galencia has not yet been ported
to any other systems.
However if you checkout the Galencia Moments link you will see Galencia running on a few
different hardware platforms via emulation including cellphones and some kind of Gameboy
device.
Podcasts / Other Video Review coverage: There is a nice audio interview of Jay Aldred
from June 19, 2017.
https://pressplayontape.podbean.com/e/developer-diaries-galencia-with-jay-aldred/
Here's a few written reviews I've come across.
Review 1: http://8bitstuff.com/2017/11/19/galencia-big-insect-must-die/
Review 2: http://www.ausretrogamer.com/galencia-blasts-onto-your-c64/
The game was reviewed in the German edition of the Return Magazine.
Jay says a few more magazine articles are forthcoming.
Galencia will be covered with a mini-review in issue 16 of Freeze64 Magazine.
Here is the Galencia Moments twitter thread: https://twitter.com/i/moments/893576963390132224
Let's not forget about the famous Cat which is on the posters and belongs to one of the
games artists, Lobo.
The kitty is otherwise known as "the inspector".
Conclusion: Galencia is a total throw back to the eighties.
With it's Galaga inspired design, Galencia reminds us of what can actually be done on
a Commodore 64 in the hands of great design and programming team.
There hasn't been another Commodore 64 homebrew I've been more excited about than Galencia.
It plays a lot like Galaga and borrows some of its design, at the same time Jay Aldred
has managed to make it unique in his own way.
With 50 levels of gameplay including challenge waves, boss battles and six original sound
tracks, Galencia provides many hours of entertaining gameplay.
Every time the game ends, I have the instant urge to start back up a new game and try to
surpass my latest score.
Highly recommended.
I want to thank Jay Aldred for putting up with me and answering all of my questions
in preparation for this review.
I deeply appreciate it.
*****
But wait there's more:
Galencia was developed using the CBM program studio.
It can be had for as little as $4.99 for the ROM over at
https://galencia.itch.io/galencia
To obtain a physical copy of the game head over to the protovision website:
https://www.protovision.games/shop/product_info.php?products_id=206&language=en
Currently Galencia is physically available in Tape, Disk, or cartridge formats.
The protovision site also has a few posters available for purchase.
Also, if you are interested in Galencia Merchandise, head over to this site:
http://galencia.dizzyjam.com
They have a nice selection of tee shirts, hoodies, coffee mugs as well as other Galencia
branded products.I am going to finish this review off by reading the game credits from
the manual.
Congratulations to the following contributors who helped put together this fantastic game:
Jay Aldred: programming and graphics Pulsebot: all music and some sound effects
Flemming Dupont: concept art Saul Cross: additional graphics and sound
effects Jakob Chen-Voos - Protovision
Lobo: box and manual Indian Nick Winder, Martin C Grundy - Introduction
Story Mark Hardisty: manual back cover illustration
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