Terrorpods

The appearance of the Terrorpods was conceived from a rejected design by Psygnosis cover artist Roger Dean for the Martian fighters in Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.

• Title — Terrorpods • Developer — Psygnosis • Publisher — Psygnosis • Designer — Ian Hetherington • Programmer — Ian Hetherington • Artist — Roger Dean • Platforms — Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, MSX • Released — 1987 • Genre — Shooting, Business simulation • Modes — Single-player

The player views the action in Terrorpods from the cockpit of his DSV (Defence Strategy Vehicle), which consumes fuel as it travels around the game world, a crater on the planet Colian. In the crater are ten mining colonies, which the player must defend and trade minerals with. The enemy forces comprise destructible Terrorpods and Spoilers roaming the world, and an indestructible mothership that hovers overhead and periodically shoots at the player. The player's prime objective is to use the DSV to trade resources between the ten colonies, building up their mineral resources so they can each build one part of a Terrorpod. There are five minerals: fuel, "detonite", "quanza", "zenite" and "aluma". The former four are used for fuel and weapons, and the latter is required to build Terrorpod parts. Colonies tend to specialize in the production of a single mineral, which the player can buy and then sell for a profit at a colony where that resource is scarce. To contact a colony for trading, the player must dispatch his "trading drover" vehicle or drive there in the DSV. The drover is useful because, unlike the DSV, it does not consume fuel when traveling. Spoilers steal minerals from the colonies, and can be shot down with a phaser cannon which consumes very little fuel. Terrorpods will attack colonies, and can be briefly repelled with the phaser, but not destroyed. To destroy the Terrorpods, the player must use missiles, which require precious detonite to work. Once the player has taken aim at a Terrorpod, the lines making up the crosshair will shift around for a few seconds, and the player must realign them for a successful hit. The DSV carries enough detonite for about two missiles and then must replenish the supply at a colony. If a colony has been destroyed by a Terrorpod, the player can repair it with their quanza-consuming energy beam. The game ends when the player has gathered the six required parts to build a Terrorpod.

Terrorpods was originally released for the Amiga and Atari ST. Included inside the game box was a foldout poster, drawn by Tim White, depicting three Terrorpods excavating minerals on the icy surface of Colian. The game was later released for Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and MSX. These versions removed all the resource management aspects of the original, turning the game into a straight-up shooter.