3D Ant Attack

Written very early on in the history of the Speccy, this was the first game to feature the now commonplace (or rather, superseded) 3/4 isometric viewpoint. The aim is to rescue the guys/girls from the 3d city while avoiding or grenading the giant killer ants. The frankly bizarre controls and the absence of even then standard game features were a result of the game being written by an art student who had never previously used a computer. It is exactly this lack of exposure to the tired cliches that now litter the market that made the game cool and original. Softco's take note. The sequel was called Zombie, Zombie. An homage of sorts was It Came From The Desert and also Escape from the Planet of The Robot Monsters.

The game itself was actually called "3D Ant Attack", was published in 1983 by Quicksilva and was the first game to use Sandy's innovative "Softsolid" graphics engine (also used in the followup). According to a Crash magazine at the time of its release, "the animation of the figures must be the best yet seen on the Spectrum".

The game is set in the walled city of Antescher. It was one of the first (if not the first) games to allow you to chose whether to play the male or the female character. Sandy also claims that 3D Ant Attack was (and I quote) "The worlds first isometric 3D game!"

Sandy himself has made the game available for all to play at his website, http://www.sandywhite.co.uk/. He also has an image of one of the sheets of A4 paper which he used to code the game in Z80 assembley language before assembling it by hand!

As the rescued SO says in the game, "MY HERO! TAKE ME AWAY FROM ALL THIS!"