Version History:

V0.9 - Private demo release lacking most of the levels and some graphics such as explosions but the majority of the programming is done. All that really needs sorting is the end of level guff, the end of game effect and the implementation of Terabit's lovely pak file stuff. As for bugs, well, I think it's relatively free of them, but if you find some then do give us a yell.

V0.91 - Private demo release lacking a few levels, some graphics and a fair few sound effects. This version has the .PAK stuff implemented and a nice new intro for the various involved parties in the project. Also fixed the ship to face forward at the end of levels. May have accidentally included porn in the data.pak file. ;)

V0.92 - Um, I forget what was new in this one... C'est la vie.

V0.93 - A few new sound effects, abut the main change is a whopping great speed increase brought about by a blindingly obvious change to the room display code. Quite why I didn't think of it earlier is a mystery... Also added some new debug stuff so I could see what it was spending most of its
time doing (which *was* drawing the screen but now nothing is an obvious resource drain). This debug mode has the knock-on effect of making the game appear really ugly so I can safely put out BETA test copies without the risk of it doing the rounds too much. Might be interesting to see how she flies on a P200... Also might have fixed the end-of-level stuff. Oh, and I made the Gunports easier to blow up (they are now vulnerable 40% of the time instead of just 20%).

V0.94 - Well, it's December 31st now (2am) and I've just finished programming in all the joypad support after having not touched the game for several months. Tsk, eh? Anyhow, it seems to work okay on my machine (WinXP using a PSJOY adapter and a PS1 DSP). Lets hope it works on everyone elses, eh?

V0.94b - Gah! Well, it's a few days later and John Blythe has pointed out an annoying little fact, which is that pads like the M$ Sidewinder have analogue D-Pads. Oh buttocks. Well, a few graphics and a swift recode later and I now support those accursed things. Just hope it works on his
machine. No idea why his keyboard controls ceased working, though... Also discovered after replaying the original that even if you don't get the 1500 points of cargo you advance to the next level. Always assumed it made you replay the level for some reason. Odd. Anyhow, I altered my version
to match.

V0.94c - And "Gah!" again. I just got in touch with Sunteam who're doing the other remake of Cybernoid (theirs is of the original, though) and we exchanged Betas. Their one is looking quite lovely and plays a damn fine game, however they're also adding all sorts of extras to theirs that I
simply could be arsed to compete with. However as an upshot of this I expect mine'll be out sooner. Oh, the point of this all? Well, Mike pointed out that people with only 2 button pads will get stuck in the "define pad" option as it requires at least 4 buttons to be defined with unique button
codes. This is sorted now and you just press Escape to skip a function. Also followed my boss's advice (John Pickford - I am the lord of the name-drop!) and centralised all the control code. Makes things a lot easier.

V0.99 - Well, I just put in Russ's final level and then added a few little bits and bobs to it. I also drew a few background tiles and stuck them on every damn screen in the game (that was fun :P ) and added some lovely secret stuff to the game as well (which wasn't as much as I'd liked but I
ran out of ideas as well as room). Did a few more sound effects (the swoosh on the screen-wipe and the end of level lifts) and pretty much finished up.

The only thing left to do now is the end of game sequence, which'll probably give hints for the cheat codes (which'll probably be really difficult to find by doing an ascii search of the binary because they're stored in a really odd manner) and a few more sound effects (for piffling things that I may well say "Sod it" about). Oh, also had to rewrite the display routine a little to allow for the inclusion of backgrounds as destroying blocks was causing it to cut chunks out of the display. Whoops. What the hell am I gonna'
do for an ending effect?!

V0.991 - Wow, now we're splitting numbers too small. Really shouldn't have jumped from .94 to .99 so eagerly. Anyhow, I've put in expansion pack support now so that if anyone is stupid enough to create a map-pack they can do so and it'll be recognised by the game. I may well tart up the editor now and include it with the release. Then again, I may keep it separate. I'm just that contrary. Also stuck in the extra keys for Neil Walker because he's a big girl's blouse. A pink one, too. I really should update to the latest version
of Lee Page's pak routines... Might even alter the version numbers - I've always been fond of revisionist history. ;)
Oh, I also changed it so that the extra level wasn't a secret any more but part of the main game (ie, there are 5 levels to travel through instead of the original 4). Hopefully RH and JB'll come through with extra maps for me
so we can make this an even bigger release. I'd love to have 8 in there in the end.

V0.992 - Well, I did a lot of coding for the ending sequence, the code is a bloody mess (staggeringly bad - I mean it) but I quite like the effect. In particular the parallax working in two dimensions is very pleasing. The
graphics for the player character are a bit crap, but seeing as he'll be on screen for all of a few seconds I really couldn't give two figs. Still need to code the beginning of the end sequence (did the fun bit with the planet landing first. Cheeky me.) and see if Will Morton's got any music
hanging around I could pilfer for it. Also *really* need to do some more sound effects. Gah! Boredom approaches!

V0.999 - Well, I'm pretty much done now. All I need now is a tiny wee media file or two and it's all dealt with. In the mean time I've found a few wee bugs including one that dropped the tracker collar off of rooms on map rooms below a certain level (stoopid typo) and another which meant you would collect bonuses when you were dead as your ship flew back to the restart position. Together with the bugs that Russ found I reckon it's almost bug-free. Obviously not completely, though. ;)

Finished the end sequence as well. Not brilliant but not bad. Certainly a crapload better than the original one (seeing as there wasn't one in the original version).