Magnetron

Magnetron is a video game in the action genre and published by Brøderbund Software, Inc. originally released in 1988. It is currently playable on Commodore 64.

The exploration starship Helios encounters a surprise when it returns to Earth from deep space: alien invaders besiege your world. Fifty gigantic space fortresses orbit the planet, equipped with highly advanced Magnetic Force weapons. Humanity's only hope is the Helios contingent of photonic fighters.

Magnetron is a top-down action game consisting of 50 levels, each representing an enemy fortress. A fortress consists of a number of platforms in space. The objective in each level is to destroy all weapon emplacements in the current fortress. The movement of the player's Photon Fighter is based on inertia: a push in one direction and the ship will continue to drift in that direction unless a reverse push is applied. However, the ship will not necessarily drift indefinitely: enemy Magnetic Force weapons also influence the ship and can deflect course, slow the ship, or pull it in unwanted directions.

Each thrust of the engines subtracts fuel from the tank. If the fuel runs out, the ship is destroyed, but additional fuel can be collected from tanks scattered around the platforms. The fighter can also employ an energy shield that prevents damage from enemy shots, but its activation consumes a lot of fuel.

Platforms feature different types of walls: contact with solid walls destroys the ship, some others can be destroyed by laser fire, and special elastic walls reflect shots - in some levels enemy guns can only be destroyed by a targeted reflected shot.

The game features a practice mode, which allows you to try all but the last level of the game. It also comes with a full-featured level editor, which allows you to build complete sets of new levels. Walls, cannons and fuel tanks can be freely placed, and the program also allows you to set how magnetic forces affect the player's ship. Levels can be saved to disk.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.