SWIV (Amiga) (Revisited) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
80πΉοΈ SWIV is Silkworm in Vertical, we play as a helicopter or a jeep, and must destroy as many enemies as possible, in a continuously scrolling environment. We played it in the Lemon competition in 2015, and here is my best run from that competition.
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Production Notes:
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Captured: 6th December 2015
Narrated 25th July 2018
Edited: 22nd June 2018 - 5th March 2019
This footage was originally given away to backers of the Amiga: Quantum Leap film(s), as a free gift, but it wasnt narrated. Having gone back to several of the first games I reviewed with longer (and hopefully better) ones (Batman, The Settlers etc), I decided I wanted to make a proper guide for this game, and show a few tricks I learned about it. Like the adaptive difficulty, the bubble tricks, and the free shields from the dollar tokens.
As the footage was already recorded, it was just a matter of narrating it. Not much in the way of notes for this one, although I made a few narration errors. On the screen before the first huge laser boss, I say "we'll be ok as long as we have the Speed of this weapon", what I meant to say was Spread - I had the three-way, which is the default once you get into the game, and you cant go lower. I cut out the word Speed but forgot to swap it for Spread. Similarly, at the end of the review, I say "I love the loading on the WHDLoad version", but what I originally said was "I Miss the loading". This doesnt seem to make sense either way, as the loading is seemless. What I meant to say was "I miss the disk drive chugging away on the WHDLoad version".
Yes I know I make it look easy. I must have played the game at least 10 times before recording this run, and getting it perfect is not as easy as it looks here. Although, if you follow my methods of staying right at the bottom of the screen, there is only half of the helicopter on the screen to be shot at, which can make things easier. Also knowing when to die to make the enemies easier!
Late Update! - Forgot to mention the cartoon intro animation at the very start of this was compiled again. I realised I used a 2016 version in the previous video, which showed an apple core, and also the Future Wars guy - both missing from the 2017 version I had been using! I spent a whole day trying to resurrect the old files, made several generations of the editor ago, but finally found the parts I was looking for, and made a few additions to the 2018 overlay I made to add new characters. Not that you will notice ANY difference, but now the apple, space guy and also the ship from Disposable Hero are back!
I also worked on the Lemon Advert at the end of the vid, adding a new drop shadow to the ball, and also a moving checker background, which moves like an Amiga demo. This was taken from a photo of a folded table cloth I found on the internet, blown up by 500%, and blur added.
Danscore:
SWIV is a classic for many people, and even today, it plays smoothly and is fun once you get off the very dull looking shanty town at the start of the mission. There are colours to be found, as the levels change from land to water, to jungle and corn fields, but the 16 colour palette for any given scenario isnt eye popping like Hybris or Battle Squadron. The music is a classic on the title screen, but the game itself is played with no music, although the sound effects absolutely make use of all four channels. Even the game 'Intact' managed music and SFX playing together, and accomplished a similarly drab colour scheme, but unlike its competitors, SWIV has a perfect playability and difficulty curve, which encourages the player to get just a bit further. With 5 continues and 5 lives in each, thats a lot of chances to get far, and the game never sends you back to play sections all over again. Each wave is unique, and each area is memorable, so this gets bonus points for that, even though the weapons are nothing special compared to the aforementioned shooters. I'd give this an 8.5 out of 10.
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