Paradroid 90 (Amiga) playthrough

After trying again and again for two months I finally made it through.
Despite its low framerate I think this is one of the best games ever created and I'm very happy to
have fully beaten it.
2:34 - Ship 1: USF Vigilant
23:03 - Ship 2: USF Paradroid
56:57 - Ship 3: USF Odyssey
1:42:37 - Ship 4: USF Andromeda
2:21:05 - Ship 5: USF Centura
3:01:14 - Ship 6: Arabella
WinUAE creates a new video output file when the current reaches 2GB: up.picr.de/407...
That's why there's a slight hickup at 2:11:53 where the two files were merged together.
No savestates, cheats or other tools were used.
Here's the story from the manual:
It is the year 2390. A fleet of space freighters have been dispatched to the frontier world of Basmyth in response to urgent calls for military assistance following attacks from the bordering trimorg empire. These freighters carry a skeleton crew by various droids, ranging from simple cleaning robots to complex cyborgs capable of piloting a ship.
The freighters are carrying a cargo of battle and security droids to help in the defence of Basmyth. Three days ago, sub-space messages were received from two distress beacons launched from the fleet. The crew of the U.S.F. Paradroid reported being scanned from an uncharted asteroid feild, moments before the droids in the cargo deck mysteriously activated themselves, minutes later the bridge was under attack from the battle droids, and the onboard complement of crew also became hyper active. The captain of the U.S.F. Paradroid reported the bridge bulkhead doors had almost been breached and that the remaining human crew were unable to reach the shuttle bay to abandon ship.
Since the message was sent three days ago, we can only fear the worst. It is assumed that the rogue droids have taken over the ship, possibly under alien control, and will be used against the free planets. It is therefore imperative that the freighters be stopped immediately. It is too dangerous to beam military personnal aboard the freighters, but it is possible to use to use MKII prototype influence droid (I.D) is a small self-powered anti droid unit. It uses anti-gravity generators to hover about. It carries its own armament, a low powered plasma bolt sufficient to damage or destroy small droids, but unable to penetrate armoured battle droids. However, it`s main feature is its ability to render an enemys droids brain unit inoperative and control the droid itself, able to direct its weapons under the protection of its armour.
The I.D is also able to recharge itself from the droids energy banks but the life of the slave droid is severly shortened as its brain unit attempts regain control, inevitably resulting in burning out and destroying the droid. At this point the I.D becomes a free agent once more. In order to keep itself charged up, the I.D must continually gain control of a new slave droid. More powerful droids are harder to take over, but offer a better platform for taking over droids. The droid libary on the ships onboard computer carries more information on the different droids likely to be found on the freighters.

[@andrewbraybrook6410]

Brilliantly played. Excellent play to leave droids available to pick up later rather than just try to mow everything down. I knew someone would be able to do it! I had forgotten whether there was a 999 on board the last ship. There is, and it needs to be used well, which you did. AEB (The author of the Paradroid.)

[@amiga101games]

Wow, thank you so much for commenting and watching the vid! It's a huge honor. Paradroid and Paradroid 90 are such ingenious masterpieces, the transfer-game never gets old. Thank you for inventing these and also for giving us Uridium I&II and Fire & Ice! Games that will always be fresh and challenging. Single player perfection!

[@aluskn]

Thanks Andrew for a big contribution to my childhood. Many happy hours spent on both this and the C64 predecessor. I probably played most of your games, but these were my favourites. It says something that I can still remember that the 476 and the 711 were great droids all these years later :)

[@Two_Ravens]

This game more than any other stuck in my memory for decades. I just rediscovered the name of the game thanks to this video and it's amazing seeing you here. Thanks for your creation. This game's unique approach stuck with me. Now I am teaching my kids game development skills

[@porta_patrols]

this game motivated me to program a remake !

[@richtakings3359]

AEB you are a God !!

[@peterkemna1008]

Das war auf dem Amiga mein absolutes Highlight. Für mich gab es nichts besseres. Es gab Spiele mit anderen Themen wie Autorennen oder ähnliches. Aber Paradroid 90 war was Science Fiction angeht damals das non plus ultra. Und es war ja nie langweilig weil immer wieder andere Situationen auftauchten. Vielen Dank an den Uploader

[@dax3m]

Well done! Legendary skills! I bet you're only one of handful of people in history who actually managed to complete this game. An absolute pleasure to watch! Thank you for dedicating your time for this - you've effectively closed a chapter from my childhood which has been open for way too long!

[@amiga101games]

Thank you, it was more persistence than skill. I must've failed in every possible way before I finally got it down in this run where I knew how to avoid every pitfall (and still got into big trouble 3 or 4 times here). Nice, it was also a very important chapter from my youth.

[@SirChristian100]

the more and more I watch the old Amiga Games - the more I become aware it founded my love for electronic music lol

[@shawnio]

this is amiga? I am impressed. | think the low framerate is cuz of the multiple framed animations layering

[@xwario]

Great job playing this to the end. I love it.

[@securitysystem]

I recongize RAM extension to 1 MB for the droid library and the alternative intro tune. Good job, haI have completed it myself, it was one of the fair games where are you could manage to do that with a decent amount of practice. But it took me a while.

[@ChristianMiersch]

This is, as far as I know, the very first complete playthrough of the Amiga version. It is evident you played a lot, the robot tactics are very satisfying to watch. Congrats on how you pulled this off! By the way, it would be nice if you add some time codes with descriptions to your video description marking the start of each new ship while also providing the ship names. Maybe also consider a reupload in 1080p to "future-proof" it. (I know 480p are perfectly ok and nothing more is needed, however HD videos are just favoured over time.)

[@amiga101games]

Thank you Christian! Added the timestamps now. The video is already in HD - it's 1280x800 (640x400 doubled with VirtualDub). Click on the cog wheel and you'll see it says 720p50 (although it's actually 800p50). YT recently removed the HD icon for sub-1080p but it's still "HD ready". 640x400 doesn't scale well to 1080p that's why I only do it for the games with 640x512- to 640x540-resolutions (or 320x256 to 320x270 to be exact).

[@ChristianMiersch]

@@amiga101games Perfect! And good to know about KZbin removing the HD option. If you put the Time stamps first in your list I believe also the video time line should show the segmentation.

[@amiga101games]

@@ChristianMiersch Changed it but that doesn't seem to make a difference. I prefer it without chapters anyway, the timestamps are fine.

[@SteveFusionX]

well played, one of my favourite games of all time

[@PerryCS2]

Never seen the Amiga versiion before. I did buy the C64 version and I must say... I like the graphics in the C64 better. This version looks too blurry everywhere. Maybe it's the capture or something but I can't even see the numbers on the robots - the C64 version seemed more well thought out. Regardless, it's a fun game. I was happy I purchased it.

[@EamonThePhilogynistWalford]

I had a demo version of Paradroid 90, known as the One Ship Taster, with a much smaller ship to clear and some raiders at the end. Maybe that was the 7th ship Andrew Braybrook was referring to after all! ;-) Anyhow, well done on completing the game. :-)

[@amiga101games]

Wasn't aware there was a demo version. Found a disk image of it through google. Cool, another Paradroid 90 ship - thank you! :) So Andrew Braybrook really designed 7 ships for the Amiga after all. The hidden pirate ship of the retail version must've been the 7th ship that he created that's why he called it the 7th.

[@EamonThePhilogynistWalford]

@@amiga101games Yes, and even then, the demo version took me a while to master. 😉

[@amiga101games]

@@EamonThePhilogynistWalford Well, raiders are devilish. Looking forward to the ship!

[@EamonThePhilogynistWalford]

@@amiga101games If I still had the demo, and a way to upload it here, I'd have done so, and I might check to see if someone else already has. ;-)

[@amiga101games]

@@EamonThePhilogynistWalford Yes someone already did upload it. A Google search for "Paradroid 90 demo" found two ADFs of it on archive.org. I'll try it at the weekend.

[@daishi5571]

Don't show this to Jamie at Morgan Just Games. He said he needs to learn how to play this.

[@karolstopinski8350]

When you're transferring do you control the left or right side?

[@amiga101games]

You can choose the side that you deem better before starting the transfer game.

[@amiga101games]

Playthrough of the exclusive Ship #0: USF Dejavuja here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iou3mZ6OiMeEkKs

[@Freddsche]

Playing on an AMIGA emulator with emulated disk loading sound... wow :)

[@amiga101games]

That's part of the nostalgia for me.

[@SirChristian100]

@@amiga101games for me the harddrivesounds are essential

[@flonkplonk1649]

@@SirChristian100it's the diskdrive sound 😉

[@SirChristian100]

@@flonkplonk1649 you are right, too braindead, of course its disks

[@SammYLightfooD]

Cleared ship 1 for the first time today (on real hardware). Nice video, well played!

[@amiga101games]

Thanks and congratz - that's a good start! Now if you can beat ship 2 you can beat the whole game. Ships 2 and 5 are the hardest in my opinion.

[@Mark-pr7ug]

This was one of thosecgames that I found no interest in. Tried the demo that came with the mag, read all the raving reviews etc. Just didn't click with me. But I suppose if you'd played the c64 version, then there would be more interest.

[@NathanHassall]

Unfortunately for me in the 80s my dad believed this game to be satanic and I was not allowed to play it.

[@litjellyfish]

Is funny how they did not manage to get the scrolling smooth with its only vertical. Compare this to the C64 version that played a lot smoother

[@bloomitsch]

Why isnt this on the appstore, friends ? Getting so hot right now to play this again 😝🤓

[@c0smiq]

Am i the only one thinking, wtf is going on here? this. does. not. make. sense.

[@gumdeo]

Fantastic work.

[@questtech2698]

machine gunner is my fav choice, it is fast, high rate of fire, and agile. And slow life decay. It can wreck havoc until the ship goes in amber or red alert :D get more points too.

[@amiga101games]

Yeah it's the best general purpose droid.

[@Jarumo76]

I love the fact that you go out of your way to execute the coffee mugs.

[@amiga101games]

Doesn't feel like a proper playthrough if I leave those on the table. ;)

[@mozzalid33]

Blast from the past

[@Tanukitsune2]

I get the "game clear" early, what did I miss? I thought I was supposed to pick up a key?

[@amiga101games]

You have to collect the key on each of the first five ships to get to the sixth ship. But the key on the 5th ship can be destroyed if you're not careful. This had happened to me, too, one week before this full playthrough. See here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/npPEd6Fnp6tglZI

[@Tanukitsune2]

@@amiga101games OH! I actually saw a bit of that video and though I only needed the one key that got destroyed? I'll have to give this another go now that I know there is a key on each ship. :)

[@amiga101games]

@@Tanukitsune2 Beating the first five ships is still quite a feat - well done!

[@porta_patrols]

awesome game!!!

[@manicsorceress2181]

What are the keys used for? Do you need them to get to the next ship?

[@amiga101games]

No, but you need to collect the key on each of the first five ships to unlock the 6th bonus ship. If you don't collect all 5 keys the game ends after the 5th ship.

[@manicsorceress2181]

Oh I see. This is very useful information. Thanks very much. By the way, that's a great playthrough you did there. Possibly the best on KZbin.

[@miguelpanta]

awesome, congrats man! they key is... 🙃

[@amiga101games]

I still don't know. Maybe I should've waited longer?

[@dax3m]

@@amiga101games I actually did some research and there seems to be a 7th ship! Andrew Braybook in response to the question "The ending screen of Paradroid 90 shows the following text "Well done! Game completed. 6 ships cleared. The key is...". What comes next?" provided this info "There is a Graftgold key on each ship, some hidden, and they are collectible. Just like Rainbow Islands there is a secret level. If you collect all of the keys on the 6 ships it will reveal a 7th ship. It's a toughie though as it is the pirate ship. As you may have noticed, a feature of '90 is that pirates start beaming in after a time. This was originally a game mechanism to liven up the latter stages of a ship and indicate that you are taking too long. The last ship is full of pirates."

[@amiga101games]

@@dax3m Hmm, but the 6th ship is already the hidden one. You only get to enter it when you collect every key from the first five ships. They keys of ships 3 and 4 are hidden. And the 6th ship is the pirate ship (it's also the only ship not to have the prefix USF). The raiders are there from the start and don't beam in after time. I even collected the key from the 6th ship (which was also hidden) so I really doubt there's a 7th ship. He probably just forgot how many normal ships there were in Paradroid 90 (I think the original Paradroid had more ships). But of course I can't rule out that I'm wrong. A 7th ship would be cool.

[@dax3m]

@@amiga101games ​ Hmm I think you are right. I went over the video again and you didn't miss any keys, so I think that either it's a case that he was thinking of a different version of Paradroid (although this interview was specifically for the Amiga version or so I got the impression), or simply a matter of him confusing the numbers. Which brings us back to the original question "The key is..." :) I definitely don't want to end up reverse engineering a copy of Paradroid 90 to take a look at the source code; we're talking about an archaic language haha.. but if there's no straight answer...

[@amiga101games]

@@dax3m ...then we'll probably never know unless one of its creators tells us.