''Swoop'' is a clone of Namco's ''

Galaxian is a 1979 fixed shooter video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. The player assumes control of the Galaxip starfighter in its mission to protect Earth from waves of aliens. Gameplay involves destroying each formation of alien ...

'' programmed by David Elliot for the

BBC Micro The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a family of microcomputers developed and manufactured by Acorn Computers in the early 1980s as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project. Launched in December 1981, it was showcased across severa ...

and published in the UK by

Micro Power Micro Power was a British company established in the early 1980s by former accountant Bob Simpson. The company was best known as a video game publisher, originally under the name Program Power. It also sold many types of computer hardware and s ...

. It was ported to the

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was introduced as a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers, to provide many of the features of that more expensive mach ...

the game's launch in 1983 and the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...

in 1984.

Gameplay

The invading aliens take the form of wing-flapping Birdmen. ''Swoop'' differs from other ''Galaxian'' clones in that the Birdmen will lay explosive eggs if they successfully reach the bottom of the screen. If the eggs are touched by the player's laser base then a life is lost, so they effectively confine the movement of the laser base until they disappear after some pre-set time. There are a total of eight levels (called "phases" in the cassette inlay instructions), each successively more difficult than the last. The most difficult level has a total of two Birdmen and eight missiles raining down on the player simultaneously.

References

External links

''Electron User'' review
1983 video games BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games Commodore 64 games Fixed shooters Micro Power games Single-player video games Video game clones Video games developed in the United Kingdom {{8bitcomputer-game-stub