Games - Nebulus

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	Games - Nebulus

Nebulus is a computer game published by Hewson in the late 1980s for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and Acorn Archimedes platforms. A version for the Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System and Atari 7800 was also released. The US version, which was published by U.S. Gold, was known as Tower Toppler. Nintendo versions were known as Castelian. There is also unfinished version for Atari XE/XL computers.

Nebulus is a platform game with some distinctive unique features. Your character, a small green creature called Pogo, is on a mission to destroy eight towers that have been built onto the sea.

The actual game play happens at each tower in turn. Pogo starts from the bottom and has to find his way up to the top. The towers are cylinder-shaped and have ledges on their outside, either horizontal, forming stairs or connected by elevators. Because of the cylindrical shape, the towers have no "left" or "right" edges, instead allowing Pogo to walk all around the tower.

A graphical innovation, and perhaps the most notable feature of the game, is that when Pogo walks left or right, he always stays in the centre of the visible screen. Instead of the Pogo sprite moving, the tower behind him turns clockwise or counterclockwise with a convincing sense of depth. This was featured favourably in reviews of the game.

Along his way to the top of the tower, Pogo encounters many different enemies, mostly shaped like basic geometric shapes. Pogo can shoot some of the enemies, while some are impervious to shooting. Contact with an enemy knocks Pogo down to the ledge below. If there is no ledge below, Pogo falls into the sea and drowns.

Once he has reached the top of the tower, Pogo needs to enter a door to trigger the tower's destruction mechanism. After that, the tower crumbles to the sea. Pogo then boards his submarine and enters a bonus stage (in some platforms, but not for example in the ZX Spectrum version), where he can shoot various kinds of fish to score bonus points.

Nebulus was followed by a lesser-known sequel, Nebulus 2, in the 1990s.

A clone featuring penguins has been ported natively for Linux systems .

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