Infestation (ZX Spectrum Next)

This morning was clearly not a good one for the space miner. Although, the concept of morning is basically nonexistent on this inhospitable piece of rock within Jupiter's gravity well.

Another targeted explosion in the mine opened a large cavity, disturbing its inhabitants, and hundreds of aggressive bugs broke into the base.

A heavy vibratory hammer and a clumsy spacesuit won't be enough to deal with these nimble three-meter centipedes. Fortunately, there are still 25 bombs left, and at the base, most likely in the upper left part, there should be a box where they can always be replenished.

The task is complicated by the fact that due to the depressurization, the hapless rare mineral hunter has only 25,000 units of oxygen at his disposal

He must deal with the intruders as quickly as possible before they, wielding their powerful mandibles, completely reduce the valuable equipment and gear to rubble.

Controls: Q, A, O, P, Space, or Kempston joystick.

The game is written in NextBASIC and is not designed to run on classic Spectrums. This is the ZX Spectrum Next version. The gameplay is reminiscent of a more challenging version of Bomberman.

The source code for Infestation, which Darryl Sloan wrote back in 2020, was published successively in Eight Bit #9, #10, and #11. It took three days to get it working and draw all the sprites.

Thanks to:

• Darryl Sloan and Eight Bit magazine for this wonderful game.
• Remy Sharp for the online sprite editor and the txt2bas utility.
• Mike Dailly for the amazing CSpect emulator.
• The Next team for the wonderful 8-bit computer and the very expressive NextBASIC programming language.
• Jim Bagley for the .spredit utility.

I encourage everyone to support the magazine by purchasing the digital version, or, if you're lucky, the paper edition. And of course, visit the author's channel and give it a like.

If you spot any errors or have any suggestions for improving the game, be sure to leave a comment below.

On December 25, 2025, Darryl posted his game with a description, so if you want the original resources directly from the author, then feel free to follow the link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11Xat4rt348gvnxUVYv5zJSquQP0Y1FtL