Nebulus (computer game)

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Nebulus
Developer(s)	Triffix Entertainment Inc.
Publisher(s)	Hewson, U.S. Gold
Designer(s)	John M. Phillips
Platform(s)	Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, C64, Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 7800, Acorn Archimedes, Wii Virtual Console
Release date(s)	1987 Virtual Console EU June 13, 2008 NA May 4, 2009
Genre(s)	Platform game
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: E PEGI: 3+
Media	Floppy disk, Cartridge, Audio tape, built into controller, online download

Castelian
Developer(s)	Triffix Ent. Inc.
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Platform(s)	Game Boy
Release date(s)	JP October 30, 1992 NA May 1991
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single player

Nebulus, also known as Castelian, Kyorochan Land, Subline and Tower Toppler^[1], is a computer game published by Hewson in the late 1980s for various home computer systems. The US version, which was published by U.S. Gold, was released under the title Tower Toppler.

The Nintendo versions were released as Castelian, in which the character is called Julius. The Game Boy version of Castelian was developed by Bite Studios and released in the United States by Triffix and in Japan by Hiro Entertainment.

The Italian version was called Subline.

The game's original 8-bit release came to some critical acclaim, in particular the Commodore 64 release, which garnered a Gold Medal award from UK magazine ZZAP!64. Nebulus was followed by a lesser-known sequel, Nebulus 2, on the Amiga and Atari ST in the 1990s.

Contents 1 Versions 2 Gameplay 3 Reception 4 Trivia 5 Inspired works 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Versions

• The relatively early supported home computer systems were ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and Acorn Archimedes.
  • There is also an unfinished version for Atari XE/XL computers.
  • In 2004 it was re-released on the C64 Direct-to-TV.
  • On June 20, 2008, the C64 DTV version made its comeback on the Wii's Virtual Console download service in Europe on June 13, 2008 and later in North America on May 4, 2009.^[2]
• Versions for game consoles Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System and Atari 7800 were also released.

[edit] Gameplay

Nebulus is a platform game with some distinctive unique features. Your character, a small green creature called Pogo, is on a mission to destroy eight towers that have been built onto the sea, by planting bombs at the towers' peaks. Pogo's progress is hindered by enemies and obstacles, which he has to avoid in order to reach the top of the tower.

The actual game play happens at each tower in turn. Pogo starts from the bottom and has to find his way up to the top. The towers are cylinder-shaped and have ledges on their outside, either horizontal, forming stairs or connected by elevators. Because of the cylindrical shape, the towers have no "left" or "right" edges, instead allowing Pogo to walk all around the tower.

A graphical innovation, and perhaps the most notable feature of the game, is that when Pogo walks left or right, he always stays in the centre of the visible screen. Instead of the Pogo sprite moving, the tower behind him turns clockwise or counterclockwise with a convincing sense of depth. This was featured favourably in reviews of the game.

Along his way to the top of the tower, Pogo encounters many different enemies, mostly shaped like basic geometric shapes. Pogo can shoot some of the enemies, while some are impervious to shooting. Contact with an enemy knocks Pogo down to the ledge below. If there is no ledge below, Pogo falls into the sea and drowns.

Once he has reached the top of the tower, Pogo needs to enter a door to trigger the tower's destruction mechanism. After that, the tower crumbles to the sea. Pogo then boards his submarine and enters a bonus stage (in some platforms, but not for example in the ZX Spectrum version), where he can shoot various kinds of fish to score bonus points.

[edit] Reception

Computer Gaming World gave the game a postive review, saying, "Between delightfully benign game play ..., clever obstacles (though none are very difficult to figure out), and lively animation, you will have a great time with this game. Well, maybe you won't, but I will."^[3]

[edit] Trivia

• An oversight by the designer caused the game to have the wrong name. It was supposed to be called "Castellan", which refers to the keeper of a castle.
• The same month the game was released, a demo was due to appear on the Zzap!64 magazine cover cassette. However, due to a mastering error, the full game was provided instead of the demo, giving all Zzap!64 readers a copy of the game free of charge.

[edit] Inspired works

The name of the game apparently influenced another game Perestroika to have a second name Toppler (executable file was called toppler.exe). Not to mention a curious similarity of the main character of this different games.

Clones of the game exist for e.g. for the Linux platform and for the iPhone.

A technically noticeable enhanced clone, that is underlying a free GPL v2 licensing, is those of hobby games developer Andreas Röver that can be tracked to at least as early as February 2003 with a last official release build from July 2007. Despite the lack of current releases and the project retirement of Röver the development and fixing on that independent code, graphics and sound collection base seems to continue up to present times including e.g. a level editor. The whole project is based upon SDL and was run at least on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and BeOS. Several Linux distributions have incorporated those game version into their media deliveries and updates. The game is present on source forge under the keyword "toppler"^[4] even if it refers to itself often as "Tower Toppler".

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Tower Toppler at MobyGames
• Toppler - a very accurate Nebulus remake
• GP2X Port
• Nebulus at AmigaMemo.com - AmigaMuseum
• Nebulus at World of Spectrum
• Castelian at GameFAQs