Basement Terror

A couple of years ago I bought an Atari 65XE and while I was going through its game library and checking out games, I loaded Cellar Terror. I immediately got hooked and although the graphics, sound and animation were really really basic (as basic as they could be back in the day), I spent most of my time on the Atari on that game. 

After finishing the Next War I was really burnt out and took a hiatus from coding.  I had a couple of games half written but I decided to start a new and easier project to get back in the mood. Hence, I wrote this simple but addictive game, enriching it with Next goodies, sprites, per pixel movement, and added bonuses to give it an 80s arcade look.

So,  in a nutshell: your basements are full of evils. Collect them to make them go away but keep your eye on the clock. They also have the tendency to teleport from time to time making your life more difficult. As you progress into the game, several bonus objects with a life of their own are introduced: pints that will slow you down for a few seconds, a magic shoe that speeds you up , an hour glass that will add some seconds to that merciless countdown clock, and a few amperes that decided to take a stroll and will leave you stunned upon contact.

Each cellar is randomly generated using a routine I adapted from an old spectrum book (Cracking the code on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by John Wilson). There are 16 of them that you have to clear before you can have some rest!
The title music is a hard rock rendition of Toccata und Fuge d-Moll BWV 565 and the loading and ending screen originated as AI renders and were further edited and converted to the Next native resolution and palettes.

The game has been tested on both KS1 and KS2 machines, as well as on an N-GO.