Cosmic Aliens 1.9.7 - PC DOS game by ogStevieStrow from 1988
17I've started a website to track the progress of the new versions of this game that will be developed, it's http://cosmicaliens.com
Cosmic Aliens is a game I wrote for MS-DOS systems back in 1988, it started as an "I told you I could do it" exercise in one of my college classes and grew into a full featured arcade game with a variety of settings and features, and was distributed through local bulletin board systems BBS in South Florida and made it's way around the country at least.
It's a hybrid of Space-Invaders and Galaxians, as the aliens move around a bit but still bomb you. The basic game play is move left and right fire at the aliens, avoid bombs and clear the round. Like Space Invaders, there are UFO ships that will randomly fly across the top of the screen and can be shot for bonus points.
Each round or wave add more aliens and faster speeds. And there are a few variations to the game play. On occasion, the normal round of aliens will be replaces by a Kamikaze Attack! and these are 1-2 very fast aliens that are almost impossible to hit, but they are worth 1,000 points each.
After clearing a normal wave, there is a chance that you will encounter an asteroid shower before you advance, in this mode, there are falling rocks from the sky that can't be shot or destroyed.
You have to shoot down a certain number of alien UFO ships before you run out of time.
Every 5th round is the Bonus Round, there are no bad guys to hurt you and you have 30 seconds to try and shoot as many flying UFO ships as possible.
What was very unique about this game, was the amount of customization I put into it. Just about every aspect of the game play settings could be changed. How fast your joystick moved, how many points you had to get for an extra life, how many lives you start with, what your laser or shot looks like, how quickly the difficulty would increase, etc.
In addition to just changing some of those now somewhat "standard" features, there was also a difficulty editor.
There are 10 different difficulties from 0-9. You could select which difficulty you wanted to change, and change the number of aliens that the round would start with, and the speed of the aliens, too, so you could really dumb it down and make them slow if you wanted.
It also featured a top 10 high score table, and game over attract modes, and some familiar space music.
I'm really glad I found this, and I hope you enjoy the video, I'm going to be re-making this game on a variety of retro and modern platforms, follow the progress at http://cosmicaliens.com
You need to run this either on a real PC that's real old and real slow, like an 8088 CPU, or run it on DOS BOX but you need to throttle the CPU speed from like 40000 to about 800 for the speed to be playable, your millage may vary, hit me up if you need help tweaking Dos BOX.
This video is a production of The Original Gamer Stevie Strow, aka ogStevieStrow. Thanks for watching, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe!
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Pixel art and logos created by Joel M. Adams:
https://www.instagram.com/artistjoelmadams/
OG Theme Song by the Gimp of Hallowed Ground Records:
https://www.reverbnation.com/gordy669
Original Music by Fran Mann and Side Seat Driver used with permission:
https://www.reverbnation.com/franmann
Music from the album Pac-Man Fever used with permission:
http://pacmanfevervault.com/