ASCII Bill Invaders (Amiga)

Just load the game from the ADF for now.  Maybe it works if you drag everything to a HDD?

Background

This was a side project I started for a mini-game idea for King Arthur's Campaign. When I imagined an ordered group of attackers throwing spears down towards a castle, and a single defender with a long bow, it reminded me of Space Invaders. The project started off as ASCII Invaders, but I added a Bill skin. Sadly, I had to break off the development because my mum passed away, and I made my Death and Funeral tool instead. In May, it was announced that the AmiGameJam 2025 would be for arcade games, but my game was started before the compo entry date, so at that point I gave up, and started on my Graphic Designer instead. In August, I went back to finish it off, intending to spend a few weeks on it. But I kept on adding new modes, so development turned into several months.

Story!

The evil CBM empire has descended on the lonely moon of PCB, dropping lethal green battery acid wherever they go. If their logo ships touch the surface of PCB, everything will die and become corrupted. Only one man can save the universe as we know it. Amiga Bill steps in to his defence turret, which is shaped like his own head. He must destroy all of Commodore's Logos, before they descend. Watch out for the Imperial Kitchen ship, which awards extra points if you blow up mom's kitchen.

Requirements

1MB Chip Ram (+ 0.5MB Slow Ram?).

Any Amiga with Kickstart 3.0 or above

Controls

Cursor keys UP/Down in Menu, Left/Right in game, Return = Fire.

Or use a joystick/joypad.

Features!

• Space Invaders in ASCII, Topaz 8!
• 4 Colour Workbench mode, or 16, 64 and 256 Workbench mode in AGA.
• 100%  Workbench Window compatible (in PAL).
• 16 or 64 Colour Fullscreen (OCS), or 16, 64 and 256 colour Fullscreen in AGA.
• Optional authentic Space Invaders backdrop, in all modes.
• Optional Amiga Bill mode, with Amiga Bill borders (OCS), which are forced on in AGA backdrop modes.
• Authentic 1970s digital Space Invaders sound effects.
• Optional 2025 Amiga Bill sound effects.
• Optional authentic 1970s space invaders theme song snippet.
• Music and SFX playing at the same time!
• Master Audio Volume control on the main menu, for those late night parties, or being quiet at bedtime.
• Cameo from Amiga Mom, who says "Meatballs" and "Little Meatballs" on the first level, and then two other things at random from level 2.
• Game Over Music by The Beach Boys!
• 1 or 2 player, non-simultaneous action!
• Authentic BASIC interpreter slow-down in almost all modes, making the game very easy to beat!
• High scores not saved to disk, so it's easy to beat your scores!

Bugs and Limits!

Designed for PAL, or modes that are 256 lines or more.

The HD AGA Workbench mode only works properly with a Workbench set to 640 x 512, and with 256 colours. Choose non-workbench mode to get around this.

Selecting the HD AGA option on non AGA setups will cause the game to quit or crash.

Not compatible with RTG monitor drivers. Remove RTG (such as Picasso) options temporarily from Devs/Monitors

Enemys are in the wrong colours in Non-AGA and AGA 16 colour modes, and AGA 64 colour modes.

Random glitches caused by bullets, and while enemies are moving, as the sides of some sprites linger if sprites are too close together.

Some enemy kill sounds refuse to play sometimes?

Game is SLOW in all modes, especially with the backdrop and Bill mode. Switching off all skin options and using a non-workbench screen seems to be fastest.

If the player uses their controller too much after Game Over, it can cause the game to quit with an error.

Installation

Just copy the contents of the HDF to your HDD, ignoring C, Devs, Fonts, S. Remember to include Pics, Brush, Music and SFX. Copy the EXE to the destination. The game uses the standard Topaz 8 font, and does not need any assigns. After the game quits, you can see from Assign that the game has assigned itself as BillInv:

Development Diary:

V0.A - 26 Mar 2025 - Initial trials with arrays to handle the data.

V0.B - 26 Mar - Alien array and draw done, some movement.

V0.C - 27 Mar - Menus and alien fire started.

V0.D-E - 27 Mar - Aliens now moving and firing. Player fire started.

V0.E2 - 28 Mar - Mother Ship started.

V0.F-F5 - 29 Mar - Debugging lives and deaths. Debug button added.

V0.F6-F7 - 30 Mar - Bugfix everything. 64 colour mode menus working.

V0.G1 - 6 Apr - Added all 55 enemy icons in 64 colour mode.

V0.G2 - 7 Apr - 64 colour enemy moving masks and kills working.

V0.G3 - 8 Apr - 64 colour bill ship working.

V0.G4 - 9 Apr - Started battery acid enemy fire in 64 colour.

V0.G5-6 - 10 Apr - Completed enemy fire and mother ship, new Bill TV skin!

V0.G7 - 10 Apr - New 16 colour mode for ECS Workbenches. Demo G7

V0.G8 - 15 Apr - Bug fixed game over, solved a crashing bug.

V0.H-H2 - 23 Apr - Added a High Res Mode, 640 x 512, 256 Colours in AGA.

V0.H3-4 - 20 Aug 2025 - Tried to use the latest version but had to revert back to 0.G7 due to bugs, and rebuilt it. Added Quit options. Fixed a controller bug in 64 colour mode. Added player fire icon as a bottle of beer.

V0.H5 - 23 Aug 2025 - Player Movement, Menu and MotherShip bug fixing.

V0.H6 - 24 Aug 2025 - Player & mother ship now working with backdrops.

V0.H7 - 25 Aug 2025 - Menu fixes. Enemies working with the backdrop enabled.

V0.H8 - 27 Aug 2025- Trying to implement 256 colour HD AGA mode again.

V0.I1 - 7 Sept 2025 - Added Music, Fire sound effect and Rock/Pop.

V0.I2 - 8 Sept 2025 - More sounds added.

V0.I3 - 9 Sept 2025 - Game loop and score bar bug fixing.

V0.I4 - 12 Sept 2025 - Bug fix enemy fire collision in Bill mode. Final SFX added.

V0.I5 - 16 Sept 2025 - Reverted to V0.I3 and updated it. Merged Joystick code. Rewrote menu select options. Added Quit to the menu to exit.

V0.I6 - 17 Sept 2025 - Added ASCII Bill pics. Score fix. 2 Player started.

V0.I7 - 18 Sept 2025 - Recoloured icons for AGA mode. Started AGA mode.

V0.I8 - 22 Sept 2025 - 16 and 64 colour HD modes. Added Players option.

V0.J1 - 26 Sept 2025 - Finished player 2 code. Fixed low-res popups pos.

V0.J2 - 27 Sept 2025 - Score fix again. Mother in HD mode.

V0.J3 - 28 Sept 2025 - Rewrote enemy fire.  AGA toggle on menu. Corrupt!

V0.J3b - 1 Oct 2025 - Fixed long-standing crash? AGA toggle back on menu.

V0.J4 - 2 Oct 2025 - Finalised enemy fire. Finalise Player fire.

V0.J5 - 5 Oct 2025 - Fixed backdrop hit check. Fixed score bugs.

V0.J6 - 7 Oct 2025 - Experiments with 16 col mode. End Bill eyes wink.

V0.J7 - 8 Oct 2025 - More fixing of AGA modes item locations.

V0.J8 - 9 Oct 2025 - Fixed SFX Flush and SFX crash bug.

V0.J9 - 11 Oct 2025 - Checked last few bugs. Cursor keys on menus. BETA 1

V0.K1 - 15 Oct 2025 - More keyboard keys, and controls page. Fire SFX fix.

V0.K2 - 16 Oct 2025 - Controls added to menu. WB Mode instead of fullscreen.

V0.K3 - 17 Oct 2025 - Final key controls. Fixed screenmode colours. BETA 2

V0.K4 - 18 Oct 2025 - New Intro bill. Fixed ASCII Bill endings. More music.

V0.K5 - 21 Oct 2025 - Enemy fire now buttons, to avoid fire dribble on screen.

V0.K6 - 22 Oct 2025 - Timers to Card_1. Player Fire now buttons. Boot logo.

V0.K7c - 23 Oct 2025 - Debug menus added. Faster player in AGA. RC1

V0.K8 - 26 Oct 2025 - Alien movement SFX added. Return key fire fix.

V1.00 - 29 Oct 2025 - Fixed issue with lives missing from AGA mode.

V1.01 - 30 Oct 2025 - Extended size of background clip for aliens.

V1.02 - 31 Oct 2025 - Fixed issue with left cursor not working on hold. Release

FAQ!

Is this game finished??
At the moment, the game is as ready as it is ever going to get barring some miracle. 

Why are there so many graphics glitches?
I dont know. It happens less with less aliens on the screen, so go ahead and shoot them all.

Is there a way to speed the game up?
Probably if you switch cycle exacts off in an emulator, and maybe use X2 speed CPU, it will be faster?

Sometimes enemy bullets travel though Bill?
Yes, in the ASCII game, bill is the letter 'A' for Amiga, so the hit box is actually smaller, and on the left of the bigger Bill sprite. The hit box is Bill's hat, so if you wander in to acid batteries after they pass the hat, he is invulnerable to them.

Are there are hidden cheats in the game?
If you press the Right mouse button in the game, you can select to quit from the pull-down menus to return to the menu again. This is handy if you get killed early, and want to retry it again. There is also a debug option on some of the game screens, accessed from the RMB pull-down menu. The debug tool was developed early to help me with the game, but it was never really finished, as I removed the bugs early. When the option is selected, the game should highlight the main hit boxes on the screen, and it will show the game timers and the mother count-down. Co-ordinates of the enemy being killed are hidden behind the current subroutine name section, because I never bothered to finish this. Bill will also leak pink lines all over the place.

If I press the Left and Right cursor keys on the Workbench mode menu, it makes the screen redraw?
This is actually a prototype audio volume control. Press left to turn the volume down, or right to crank it up. This makes the screen redraw the menu, as this was the easiest way to avoid clashing with the various backgrounds, but it is also very slow, so I never bothered to finish it.

Can I replace the sprites with better ones?
No, because in the compiled version, it stores those brush images internally, even though those IFFs are also in the Brushes folder.

Why do the sounds sometimes play, sometimes not?
I dont know. In my tests, every sound played every time.

Credits

Code, Graphics conversion - lifeschool (Dan @ LemonAmiga.com)
Testing and feedback - Ransom1122 on EAB.
Wipeout.med - by Cybarite (edited)
Guitar jangle - by 4-mat

https://bytesnbits.co.uk/learn-to-code-space-invaders-lesson-13/
https://syltefar.com/screenshot/?id=968 -- (Screenshot)
https://classicgaming.cc/classics/space-invaders/sounds -- (music and SFX)
backdrop_moon_midway.png  -- (Backdrop)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNKiwuUDllM -- (March 30, 2025, Bill TV Border)