Rex and the Galactic Plague is now very much in its final stages of development. My ultimate goal has always been to have the game fully playable on a base Amiga 500 — and I’ve made real progress toward that. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been chipping away, reworking things carefully, and trying to avoid cutting anything that alters the fabric of the game.

Last week I hit a crucial milestone: eight of the nine levels crammed onto a single disk and running happily on my Amiga of choice. That’s taken a lot of work — splitting larger levels into smaller chunks, and reorganising enemies and weapons so I could repackage everything in a more memory-friendly way. In some cases, those changes have actually improved the game: moving enemies around has helped certain levels flow better and build stronger momentum toward their bosses.

Other times it’s been more of a compromise. Level four, for example, has no natural break point, and splitting it mid-stream wasn’t ideal. But I’m learning — in game development, just like life — sometimes you just have to make it work.

Of course, the key point is this: eight out of nine levels are in and working. But the big one — Level 6 — is still missing from the A500 version.

Level 6 is the largest and most complex part of the game. It was always going to be a challenge. And so it proved. Bringing it into the A500 build pushed the disk far beyond capacity — and likely the memory limits too. Memory I can handle. I’ve been there plenty of times. A few well-placed optimisations, and the RAM issues would’ve been manageable.

But the physical size of the game with Level 6 included? That was a wall I couldn’t scale — not without removing something I wasn’t prepared to lose.

I considered that quite seriously. Could I remove the branching levels? The music? The answer, in my heart, was no.

Then Scorpion Engine released an update with vastly improved compression. A miracle. I rebuilt, and suddenly: the entire game fit onto a single disk.

But isn’t there always a “but”?

Compression comes at a cost — it increased memory pressure. The A500 version now fits on disk again, but it won’t run, not yet. The demands are too high for a standard 1MB Amiga 500 to cope. Not without further reengineering. Not without cuts I’m not yet willing to make.

So here’s where I’ve landed.

Release Plan

While I continue working toward the ultimate goal — a fully playable A500 build — I will be releasing two other versions first:

• A single-disk version playable on a stock A1200 and above, with only minor content changes

• A full-fat WHDLoad version, featuring all levels, music, and visuals, for higher-memory Amigas

• The A500 version, with some level restructuring and potential content reduction, will follow once multi-disk functionality becomes available in Scorpion

This lets me release the full game earlier — and in a playable, complete form — without compromising its vision.

To go with the release, I’ve also produced a detailed manual, which will be available as a download alongside the game. The Space Corps Field Handbook contains everything you need to understand your mission and prepare your REX unit for deployment. It’s been a joy to write — and it’s an integral part of the experience.

In my heart, Rex and the Galactic Plague is and will always be an A500 game. I will get there. But for now, I’m happy that a complete version of the game will soon see the light of day.

Thank you to everyone who has played and enjoyed the demos. You don’t have long to wait for the full game. 

I hope you enjoy the mission.

Kev

Hoyster Games