Rescue on Fractalus!

The frame rate on the CPC is fairly decent. It's far more fluid than in Ace of Aces, which uses slightly similar-looking fractal terrain.

Rescue on Fractalus! is one of the first games by Lucasfilm Games, first released in 1984 and ported to the CPC in 1986. Part flight simulator and part action game, your mission is to fly along the surface of Fractalus and rescue stranded pilots. Enemy ships and guns emplacements sometimes appear and fire at you, also enemy aliens ("Jaggi"; the game's working title was Behind Jaggi Lines because the fractal graphics are, well, jaggy lines) might attack your ship on the ground while it is landed.

The name of the game derives from the fractal graphics that were used to render the terrain. The flight sim is very playable because the cockpit instruments give a clear indication of your height over terrain (like Combat Lynx) and wing clearance left and right, so you can judge distances fairly accurately.

Links

• Rescue on Fractalus! at CPC-Power
• Rescue on Fractalus! at the English-language Wikipedia