If It Moves, Shoot It!

Enemy count differences

Probably to help provide a fluid experience across different system speeds, the lower the graphics selection, the less enemies would appear in the game. This made the CGA version significantly easier than the EGA and VGA versions. Of course, the better graphics of the EGA and VGA versions provided more incentive to play the larger hordes of enemies!

Graphics display

The title screen is stored on disk only once, in 16 colors with a custom palette. This itself is not trivia. What is trivia is how the program converts this single picture to the EGA forced-16 palette and the CGA 4-color red-green-yellow palette: It uses a Bayer dithering algorithm that, unlike most implementations of Bayer, takes color into full consideration. The end result is a surprisingly good looking EGA and CGA display of the title screen. Check the screenshots for examples.

The programmer of the game, Bobby Healy replies to this trivia with:

I actually wrote this code! Delighted to hear somebody noticed this. I remember fondly burning the midnight oil in Broderbunds office in San Rafael. Although the game was substantially developed in Waterford, Ireland I had to finish off the last version in CA due to time constraints and time zone issues. Happy times!

Information also contributed by Brandon Higa