Communist Mutants from Space

Overview
Communist Mutants from Space is a bottom-of-the-screen shooter, similar to Galaxian. The player’s anti-mutant cannon, at the bottom of the screen, shoots upwards at Mutants that hatch from a formation of eggs, which dive-bomb and shoot at the player’s cannon. There is also a Mother Creature at the top of the screen that produces eggs, replacing any in the formation that the player destroyed, until she is destroyed in turn. If the cannon is hit by a Mutant or its fire then the player will lose that cannon. When the player has no more cannons left in reserve the game will end.

Gameplay
All screens begin with a formation of eggs and the Mother Creature. Once the eggs turn into Mutants, they will break from the formation and dive at the player’s cannon, shooting at it all the while.

The Mother Creature will produce eggs, which in turn will hatch into Mutants (except for some in later stages that don’t hatch and just dive at the player’s cannon). If the Mother Creature is not destroyed it will keep on creating eggs.

The player receives an extra cannon with every other screen. As more and more screens are cleared (marked by a series of flags at the bottom right hand corner of the screen), the difficulty gets higher, with the attacks becoming more rampant, the Mutants’ shots become very large squares, and some of the eggs will charge towards the player without hatching, which can penetrate the player's shields.

Options
The game is very customizable, having several features to choose from.


 * Difficulty Levels 1-9
 * Shields – Protects the player’s cannon from mutants and their fire for a few seconds. This can be used once per round, or once per ship per round (i. e. if the player’s cannon has been destroyed during a round when they had already used their shields, they can use them again when their next ship in reserve is launched)
 * Time Warp - Slows the action down for several seconds (once per ship per round)
 * Penetrating fire–the cannon’s shots will pass through all rows (including the Mother Creature) of Mutants
 * Guided fire–the player can steer their shots after they have fired them
 * 1-4 players
 * Difficulty switch–in the B position, the cannon moves fast, but in the A position it moves slower

Controls

 * Move cannon – Left and Right
 * Fire – Button
 * Activate shields – Down on Joystick (if chosen in options menu)
 * Activate Time Warp – Up on Joystick (if chosen in options menu)
 * Scroll through menu options – Up or Down on Joystick
 * Select menu option – Left or Right on Joystick, or Button to change

Scoring

 * Mother Creature – 500 points
 * Diving Mutants – 60 points
 * Eggs – 10 points
 * Clearing screen bonus – 100 points

Extras
There are previews on the tape for Communist Mutants from Space for several other Arcadia Supercharger video games.