Brisbane based developer Richard's App Alchemy today releases Spheroids vs. Lady Jane 1.3 on the Mac App Store. Spheroids vs. Lady Jane respects the aesthetics of arcade games from the golden era of the early 80's. The goal is simply to destroy all of the splitting Spheroids to advance to the next level. Multiple advanced weapons are available as power-ups; the most powerful enables gamers to unleash a wave of screen-filling destruction.


Brisbane, Australia - Announcing Richard's App Alchemy, the developer of Spheroids vs. Lady Jane, has re-released the game to the Mac App Store. First released in 1995, Spheroids vs. Lady Jane appealed to retro-gamers with it's monochrome green graphics and frantic, classic-arcade gameplay. Over the course of five years, Spheroids vs. Lady Jane was downloaded over a million times.

Spheroids vs. Lady Jane respects the aesthetics of arcade games from the golden era of the early 80's. The goal is simply to destroy all of the splitting Spheroids to advance to the next level. Rotate left, right, fire and thrust are the only controls - however mastering the inertia of the player's ship takes skill. Explosions fill the screen as the game keeps a silky-smooth refresh rate. Multiple advanced weapons are available as power-ups; the most powerful enables gamers to unleash a wave of screen-filling destruction.

The game garnered an inordinate amount of feedback from a highly-polarised user-base: hard-core gamers praised the game for its frantic nature, while casual gamers frequently complained. "Spheroids vs. Lady Jane is hard, I don't apologise for that..."says Richard Pearson, who coded the original version of the game in a weekend, "In the beginning I just wanted to see how many dots I could move smoothly on the screen, it kind of grew from there. It was a sad day when I couldn't afford to keep the server running. Now that Apple hosts the Mac App Store I can share it again without the cost. Apple is doing a great thing for independent developers."

Gamers wrote about the original release on Geoff Minter's Yakyak: "There's something really playable about the evilness of it," "The 8 way fire is a thing of beauty, if a little confusing on-screen" and "Whoah. Yes!" Gamers on YakYak either loved or hated the game, but almost universally hated the music. As such, the music has been removed for the App Store release. The author commented, "I probably deserve some time in hell for putting that music in there - I actually removed it from the version I play at home. Anyhow, I've done everyone a favour and removed the music from the App Store version."

System Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
* 2.5 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Spheroids vs. Lady Jane 1.3 is only $0.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide through the Mac App Store in the Games category.