Skip to content

Games

Worlds in progress

From Unreal Engine 5 to 7 MHz of Motorola 68000, here is what is on the workbench right now.

Key art: an orange-and-white missile turret fires at flying saucers labelled with multiplication sums, under a violet and gold sunset
In development

Spherica

Aliens descend, each carrying a sum. Work out the answer, lock on, and fire. A 3D arcade reimagining of a times-tables shooter from the BBC Micro era.

Spherica began as a memory of a 5.25" floppy labelled simply “Multi”: a classroom game on the BBC Micro Model B where descending invaders could only be destroyed by typing the right answer.

Nearly forty years on, it is being rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5: a rotating missile turret, Niagara-powered laser fire, layered sound design and a lot of explosions. It is probably a bit much for the times tables.

  • PC
  • Unreal Engine 5

Spherica dev log

The BOOM Library website homepage
Spherica

· 2 min read

Deep-dive on sound

A simple task in Linear — "Find sounds for game" — turned into a week-long rabbit hole of sound libraries, licensing and YouTube Content ID.

Read entry
Alien craft firing glowing laser bolts at the Spherica turret against a sunset sky
Spherica

· 1 min read

Adding the first Niagara system

My first foray into building a Niagara particle system from scratch — laser bursts from descending aliens, with a second emitter for impact debris.

Read entry
Spherica's orange-and-white missile turret standing on a grassy plain in Unreal Engine 5
Spherica

· 1 min read

Introducing Spherica

Welcome to Alexandra Interactive — and to our first project, a 3D reimagining of a times-tables shooter I played on the BBC Micro at primary school.

Read entry
Pixel-art twilight scene with ruined arches, a waterfall, a full moon and a small robot sitting on a ledge
Pre-production

Project: Amiga

A brand-new title for real Commodore hardware: PAL 320×256, copper lists, hardware sprites and a 12-bit palette.

The Amiga is still one of the best machines ever made for games. Our first Amiga title is in pre-production, targeting the A500 and enhanced for the A1200.

The studio logo already has an Amiga boot sequence, in 16 and 32 colours for OCS and 256 colours for AGA.

  • Amiga 500 · OCS/ECS
  • Amiga 1200 · AGA
A cosy studio desk at night with a vintage computer, a modern monitor showing a game engine and a small robot
Exploring

Spectrum Next

Early experiments on the ZX Spectrum Next: hardware sprites, Layer 2 colour and a Z80 at 28 MHz.

The Next gives modern 8-bit hardware a lot of room to work with. We are prototyping small ideas to see what suits it best.

  • ZX Spectrum Next