Nether Earth was the very first real time strategy game. Designed for ZX-SPECTRUM machine with only needed 48KB of RAM to work. It had all the typical elements of strategy games: resources, factories, combat units, etc.
Nether Earth is a very interesting game from the point of vies of Artificial Intelligence (AI) since all the robots are self controlled. You just have to give your orders to the robots and they will try to follow them. For instance you can tell a robot to "CAPTURE NEUTRAL FACTORIES", and the robot will find it's own path to reach the closest factory avoiding the obstacles they found.
This is the remake for modern hardware AI has been improved, maps added, and the graphics are rendered using OpenGL and the SDL library.
The goal
As in almost all strategy games, the goal is to eliminate the enemy. To achieve it, you have WARBASES, that have the ability to produce ROBOTS (your combat units). You can design your own robots by combining several pieces (TRACKS, ANTIGRAVITATIONAL DEVICE, CANNONS, MISSILE BAYS, etc). To build robots you need RESOURCE points. Each warbase procudes 5 resource points every day, but you can increase it by conquering FACTORIES. To conquer a factory, let a robot stay in its door for almost 12 hours, then the factory will be yours. Once you have a combat foe ready to attack, you can send your robots against the enemy robots, factories or warbases. To conquer a warbase you have to follow the same procedure as to conquer a factory. Once you have conquered all the warbases, you have won the game.
The robots
The most exciting pat of Nether Earth is that it allows you to design you own robots. You can build robots by using the following construction pieces:
Traction pieces:
- BIPOD: The simplest traction piece. It's very slow, but very resistent, and will give to your robot some extra shield points.
- TRACKS: A fast traction piece, it's not as expensive as the antigravitational device, but is quite fast.
- ANTIGRAVITATIONAL DEVICE: The fastest traction piece. But also expensive.
Weapons:
- CANNONS: The cheapest weapon, and of course the less powerful.
- MISSILES: A great weapon, more powerful than cannons.
- PHASERS: The most effective weapon.
- NUCLEAR BOMB: The most destructive weapon. Once fired, it will destroy all the robots and buildings near the robot that has the bomb (including it).
Special:
- ELECTRONIC BRAIN: This piece enhances the intelligence of the robots, allowing them to perform your orders more effectively.
As more pieces you put to your robot, more shield points will it have, so it's important that if you have enough money, put as many weapons as you can into your robot!
NETHER EARTH REMAKE
You can find the original here: Nether Earth Remake
AROS Port by Boran Serkan
Download the AROS version at Portacall site
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