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This is a mid level WIP version of Cosmic Swarm. The core gameplay is there, but it still needs some work. The screen jumps whenever the fire button is pressed which makes the game hard to play and there's some odd flicker which isn't there in the final version. There's also no sound, no fuel ship, and the player has infinite lives. Commavid prototypes are rare, especially for their early titles so it's unusual to find one in the hands of another developer but that's exactly where this one turned up. The rom file was called Bug, but it is unknown if that was an early name or just what the programmer called it when he copied it.

Differences

The game starts automatically

You and the bugs don't start bunched up in the upper left corner

You start with 5 points

The game screen jumps whenever the fire button is pressed

You start with no lives showing but have infinite lives

There is no sound

The score and top display area are larger

There is no death animation for the bugs or player

There is no fuel ship

You gain 99 points each time you run into a block instead of 1

You gain no points from running into a bug instead of 1

There are no difficulty options via the difficulty switches. It seems to default to normal speed with aggressive bugs (A/B)

The game has some minor flicker which is absent from the final game

The ground at the bottom is much thinner

Notice the score is much larger?	Due to the flicker you can't see all three bugs
The bottom area is much smaller too	Here's the final version for comparison

Cosmic Swarm (?-??-8?)