wazzal
Battlezoned
Completed Veccy Bird [1.5]!
Posts: 74
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Post by wazzal on Nov 19, 2012 1:45:10 GMT -5
Information on this game seems to be rather elusive.
What I have been able to find out is that it was an unreleased version of a LD Arcade game, and that the rom was found around 2002 and it saw a small release at a convention.
I'm interested in seeing this game in action on the Vectrex, if anyone knows of any/can shoot a video.
Also, if anyone know any more about it, I would be quite interested.
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Post by Mayhem on Nov 19, 2012 6:26:24 GMT -5
The background behind the code itself is given in the front of the manual from the release. I'm sure someone can copy it here...
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wazzal
Battlezoned
Completed Veccy Bird [1.5]!
Posts: 74
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Post by wazzal on Nov 21, 2012 3:05:13 GMT -5
Very interesting, I wish the information included in the manual were somewhere online!
I have read conflicting stories about it's release;
some sources have stated it was released at CGE 2002, and others say CGE 2007.
Does anybody know which of these dates is correct, or if both are?
I also read that it got a limited reproduction of 100 copies.
Can anyone confirm this?
And one last bit of wonderment..I read that it was coded in 1983 by Paul Allen Newell, but that the project was canned due to the complexity of programming this game into the 4k rom size.
Does this mean that the rom that was found and sold on reproduction carts is indeed unfinished, or was the game completed and another victim of the crash of '83?
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Post by Mayhem on Nov 21, 2012 4:21:02 GMT -5
It was definitely 2002 as that was the first CGE I went to, and I got a copy. Much that it is fanciful to think that there were just 100 copies, I'm not sure exactly how many were made. When I last spoke directly to Sean Kelly, he still had supplies left to make a few more copies, and I had bought 3-4 extra copies from him back in 2006 to sell onto other people.
IIRC the project was not explicitly destined for the Vectrex, but Newell had used the Vectrex to test out code and ideas for the project on a format that he was familiar with. The final project never made it to fruition, so all that's left is the Vectrex code. It's not complete, but it is playable to a degree.
As said, I'll have to get out my copy at home and re-read what the manual says about it.
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wazzal
Battlezoned
Completed Veccy Bird [1.5]!
Posts: 74
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Post by wazzal on Dec 17, 2012 3:21:47 GMT -5
Very interesting.
Were you able to give the manual a read?
Also I thought it would be worth mentioning that there don't seem to be any videos at all of this game on youtube. I am very much interested to see what it looks like other than the 2 or 3 gameplay images available through google.
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Post by Mayhem on Dec 17, 2012 11:13:06 GMT -5
I get distracted a lot as many things are always going on... okay... here we go...
The most important statement is that this EPROM should not be considered a "game". It is only a proof of concept with the bare minimum of "game" layered on top. As Simutrek was a start-up company that planned to build its own hardware in conjunction with using laser imagery provided by Robert Abel and Associates, there was no hardware to work with for the first months (Simutrek started in October 1982). The software group (at that time, Duncan Muirhead and myself) needed something to develop code with. Since we knew the Vectrex, that was the logical interim choice. It certainly helped that one of the founders of Simutrek had been hired by GCE as a consultant to "keep tabs on the Vectrex". A deal was very rapidly struck which allowed us to use a Vectrex to develop game ideas with full access to Vectrex's RUM. This EPROM uses an enhanced overlay to that RUM which was developed for Simutrek's purposes.
The idea, in a quick sentence, was a "chase/shoot-em-up around a modifiable lattice structure". I programmed this EPROM on Vectrex to test whether such was "a reasonable concept". What was important for this test was "cat and mouse over a changing terrain". It was also used to get an understanding of the core graphical algorithms we would want to build into the hardware.
In January 1983, Simutrek's preliminary hardware system was up and running and I moved my development to it. In February, I took the time to add enough of a wrapper to make the prototype "have marginal game play" and I burned EPROMs for legacy purposes.
I strongly suggest the player view this as a prototype and test the same aspects we were testing at Simutrek. The key is "how does a chase game play out on a field where the user has the ability to change the field?". You want to make use of two controllers so you can put two or three "muthas" (as we called them in early development - note that the final "Cube Quest" game had the treasure known as "the treasure of the Mytha") into play and have the ability to choose which surface gets spun. The default games all do random spins and the randon algorithm looks sloppy to me in hindsight... certain faces seem to rarely get spun.
I have been asked why the cube redraws itself after each spin as a "zoom from the origin". The answer is simple. I was not interested nor charged with investing the time in showing the ships move around the cube. The prototype focused on the spinning. Sean Kelly of CGE pointed out there is no payoff if you get from one corner to another. Once again, the prototype was not interested in payoffs for winning. We only put the message about "being destroyed" because we need a means of halting the game if a player lost. However, as I look through the original code listing while writing this document, it sure seems like there should be a "mission completed" message. Please understand, its been about 20 years since I wrote this and I can't remember the details.
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Post by gauze on Dec 17, 2012 22:17:38 GMT -5
I remember not buying this when they were selling a few left overs on the newsgroup because it was $40 for a demo. Sounded lame then and now imho.
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Post by ledzep on Dec 18, 2012 13:37:18 GMT -5
I strongly suggest the player view this as a prototype and test the same aspects we were testing at Simutrek. The key is "how does a chase game play out on a field where the user has the ability to change the field?". You want to make use of two controllers so you can put two or three "muthas" (as we called them in early development - note that the final "Cube Quest" game had the treasure known as "the treasure of the Mytha") into play and have the ability to choose which surface gets spun. The default games all do random spins and the randon algorithm looks sloppy to me in hindsight... certain faces seem to rarely get spun. I have been asked why the cube redraws itself after each spin as a "zoom from the origin". The answer is simple. I was not interested nor charged with investing the time in showing the ships move around the cube. The prototype focused on the spinning. Sean Kelly of CGE pointed out there is no payoff if you get from one corner to another. Once again, the prototype was not interested in payoffs for winning. We only put the message about "being destroyed" because we need a means of halting the game if a player lost. However, as I look through the original code listing while writing this document, it sure seems like there should be a "mission completed" message. Please understand, its been about 20 years since I wrote this and I can't remember the details. If I may ask the obvious question, if this game is incomplete and you're the original programmer (or one of), would you have any desire to want to complete the game or make a complete game concept off of what you started with? I'm sure Vectrex fans would welcome another game coded by someone from back in the day as it were. I understand that homebrew programmers have lives, I'm just hoping that another prototype could morph into a fully playable game. |
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Post by gliptitude on Dec 18, 2012 14:32:42 GMT -5
If I may ask the obvious question, if this game is incomplete and you're the original programmer (or one of), would you have any desire to want to complete the game or make a complete game concept off of what you started with? I'm sure Vectrex fans would welcome another game coded by someone from back in the day as it were. I understand that homebrew programmers have lives, I'm just hoping that another prototype could morph into a fully playable game. I would like to add to this, to say that I love the title of this game. The concept seems to fulfill the expectations of that title and I would totally play/buy this game. ... Not sure I'm on board with dismissing some of these gameplay issues that people raised in the past. The concept seems strong enough to me to justify resolving all of those type issues, and making it "a game". (Not that it is or is not worth the work involved for you, as I can't personally quantify that, but just in comparison to other post-GCE Vectrex projects, Cube Quest seems among the most worthy). Would you consider lending the project to another programmer, (if it is yours to lend?), if there were one who was interested? |
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Post by desfeek on Dec 18, 2012 20:30:06 GMT -5
Mayhem isn't one of the original programmers... He was just quoting the manual. EDIT: I think the reasons Cube Quest was created were expressed pretty clearly. Simutrek had a project in mind, struck a deal with GCE for development rights, and built a prototype on a platform they were already familiar with. Now, I haven't played Cube Quest, but from the descriptions it seems very incomplete. It was not built as a consumer product, rather, it is the experimental work of a programmer that *most likely* could not be finished properly. I really want a copy of this now  |
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Post by VectorX on Dec 18, 2012 20:39:43 GMT -5
Yeah, Paul Newell programmed it. I don't know what Mayhem's real name is though  |
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Post by desfeek on Dec 18, 2012 20:44:20 GMT -5
I'll give you a hint: he is listed along side me as a Tester in Revival Studios' puzzle game, Shifted  |
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Post by gliptitude on Dec 19, 2012 2:16:20 GMT -5
ah too bad
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Post by gliptitude on Jan 8, 2013 12:09:09 GMT -5
Heh, I would think that this is known to many Vectrex players who are interested in this game, yet I have never seen it mentioned that there IS a Cube Quest game completed by Simutrek. It is a laserdisc arcade game.
I'm sure it is the same project, though it seems to have changed fundamentally from the original concept. The cube from the Vectrex demo functions kind of like the maps in Cosmic Chasm. Then various nodes lead to tube shooter sequences. ... No chance I will ever end up acquiring or playing a laserdisc arcade game, but the layout of this game looks pretty cool to me, a tiny bit like Tac Scan, with two different alternating game sequences. Perhaps a candidate for homebrew remake some day...
I'm considering buying a copy of the Vectrex Cube Quest today, if the price stays where it is. If I do buy it I will certainly post a video of it in action on my Vectrex. Also I will most likely be willing to re-sell it for whatever it cost me to get it. Better yet trade for other Vectrex rarities of interest to me.
**EDIT** - There is a bidder now so I am out. There were zero bids with 6 hours left, but opening bid + shipping (total about $100) was my top price.
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Post by gliptitude on Jan 8, 2013 12:15:12 GMT -5
On a side note, no pictures that I have ever seen show an overlay for Cube Quest. But it is printed on the box "THIS PACKAGE CONTAINS ONE CUBE QUEST CARTRIDGE, COLOR OVERLAY AND COMPLETE INSTRUCTIONS".
Was there a Cube Quest overlay produced?
**EDIT** - I see now that there was not ever an overlay and that this advertising of one on the package was always a bit of a controversy.
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