Penetrator (computer game)

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Penetrator
Developer(s)	Philip Mitchell
Publisher(s)	Melbourne House (1982)
Platform(s)	ZX Spectrum Commodore 64 TRS-80
Release date	1982
Genre(s)	Horizontal scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Up to two players, alternating turns
Media	Cassette Cartridge
Input methods	Keyboard (original), Joystick (Commodore)

Penetrator was an early Sinclair ZX Spectrum game made by Melbourne House programmer Philip Mitchell, one of the early hits. It was released in 1982, as a clone of the Scramble arcade game.

In it, the gamer flies a ship, which can shoot forwards, and drop bombs beneath the ship. The first level is on open air, with just mountains to dodge, and missiles which try to hit you and animated radars, but from the second level onwards, the game is inside increasingly complex caverns, so the ceiling is also a danger. And new enemies, of course - the missiles are now sometimes replaced with skulls which can go up and down, blocking the path.

The levels change with no pause, only the screen colour changes. After four levels there is a short fifth level where a base needs to be destroyed by dropping a bomb precisely, and then there is a firework animation as a reward. After all levels are finished, the ship goes back through inversed levels, with backward turned landscape.

Reviews at the time said that graphics and the game were impressive, even stunning^[1].

There was an edit mode for designing levels, and a training mode with infinite number of lives in which one can start from any level. Also, there was a simultaneous 2-player mode. The game is deceptively simple, yet it is elegant and addictive, with smooth animation and speed unrivaled by other ZX Spectrum games for quite a while since its early release. The sound consisted of a characteristic uplifting theme before ship launching, while in-game there were simultaneous shooting/explosion effects, which was a relatively advanced use of the limited one channel Spectrum beeper system at the time.

Later, versions for Commodore 64 and TRS-80 appeared.