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Post by astrp3 on Jun 11, 2013 19:13:11 GMT -5
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Post by VectorX on Jun 11, 2013 19:53:08 GMT -5
Wow, lotta obscure info there! Thanks for posting it all.
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Post by matthewdfisher on Jun 12, 2013 8:51:04 GMT -5
Sega showed Battle Star at a distributor showing (maybe more than one). I have a couple of photos of it from RePlay and Play Meter. I don't know if they ever released it. I believe that Rock-Ola's Rocket Racer was also a vector game. You can read about it here: Ah, so I was basically ripping off of your blog, and getting some of the QB-3 story wrong in the process! Love your blog by the way. I have read your entries on Cinematronics/Vectorbeam all the way through more than once. Anywho, can you post pictures of Battle Star, or have you already posted them on your blog? I would love to see them or hear any additional information you might have on the game. Rocket Racer! I knew I had forgotten (at least) one... Just for the heck of it, here's a little info on the unfinished vector game Atari Tomcat: www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=10146 |
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Post by gliptitude on Jun 12, 2013 11:02:42 GMT -5
Hey I have read some of your allincolorforaquarter blog also. Also mainly the Cinematronics section for me as well. (I just found the note I made about Star Castle, how it was initially an "adult" game).
... I feel like I have heard of Rocket Racer, but that it was not actually a vector game. ... But the few things that I am able to find now all say yes vector. An arcade-history.com article calls it an "unreleased prototype" and has a quotation of the designer/programmer that indicates that there were 6 machines built.
Maybe I will just add all of the games that everyone has mentioned, but also add some notations for 'prototype' and 'unfinished'. Do you guys want to see all of these on the list?
I think Scramble could just be added.
The rest would be conditional entries:
Battle Star
Earth, Friend, Mission
Hovercraft
Predator
Rocket Racer
Tomcat
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Post by VectorX on Jun 12, 2013 11:39:37 GMT -5
Maybe I will just add all of the games that everyone has mentioned, but also add some notations for 'prototype' and 'unfinished'. Do you guys want to see all of these on the list? I would. That's the way I did the list of Vectrex games on the wiki, dividing it up into the original GCE-released ones, modern day homebrews and unfinished/unreleased games (although maybe I should just have them all in one list, as there's strengths and weaknesses to doing them either way). |
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Post by gamezone on Jun 15, 2013 16:16:08 GMT -5
Sounds good.
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Post by gliptitude on Jun 15, 2013 19:25:27 GMT -5
Added all of the games in question. Called each of them "protoype", except for Scramble.
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Post by gamezone on Jun 16, 2013 17:07:36 GMT -5
Links are always helpful but nice to have a list on the site. Thanks again Glip.
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Post by celtroniclabs on Jun 23, 2013 2:16:38 GMT -5
Just think how massive the list would be, in comparison, for the Complete List of Raster Arcade Titles Produced..
Under Cinematronics/Vectorbeam, it should probably say "Space Wars", instead of the current "Space War". Being that the plural title was used on the Cinematronics version, the first and higher produced (production units) of the two versions.
I don't agree with gliptitude's statement that Star Castle was initially an "adult" game. I would say a more correct statement would be that Star Castle was influenced by Tim Skelly observing a Rosenthal prototype game which was derived from "Oops", an adult themed game (more like an obsession with trying to nail a girl themed game, according to Vectorbeam lore).
Rosenthal's Oops demo/prototype game had an adult theme with egg, sperm and syringe elements. This first prototype pitted one player controlling the sperm against another player controlling the syringe which contained spermicide. Rosenthal apparently was obsessed with some good looking girl that was playing around with him. Making him think he had a chance with her, etc. Sounds like a typical scenario of a chick being evil. The good ole "Bitches are evil" kind of thing lol. I think it was Dan Sunday who made these statements about the girl being a major distraction to Larry.
The player controlling the sperm (a flocking force of it) was trying to fertilize an egg and the player controlling the syringe was trying to prevent the egg from being fertilized.. At least that is what I have read about the whole thing.. Whether the egg was anchored in the center of the screen I'm not too sure.. Sounds like in may NOT have been. Maybe Larry would remember..
That prototype then developed into another game that had a single player controlling a spaceship surrounded by two rings (consisting of rotating rectangular block sections). These rotating block rings would move around the screen with the player's ship as he flew freely around the screen. A large number, of what Tim Skelly referred as "snowflakes", would then swarm the player, eventually overwhelming the player, then the game would end.
As Tim Skelly has said, and I agree with, that the only real element from Star Castle that was lifted from this second Vectorbeam prototype game was the rotating ring shields (transformed from blocks to single line segments to reduce the number of lines that had to be drawn on the screen). It is possible the "homing sparks" in Star Castle may have derived from the "snowflakes", but their function in Star Castle is different from the Vectorbeam prototype game descriptions.
Furthermore, none of the Vectorbeam Oops prototype code (or its later derivative) was utilized in any way in Star Castle. It was an entirely separate game coded from scratch by Scott Boden, at Cinematronics, not at Vectorbeam.
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Post by gamezone on Jun 26, 2013 8:31:08 GMT -5
So free love and psychedelic trips from the 1960's greatly influenced arcade games of the 70's and 80's!  |
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Post by gamezone on Jun 26, 2013 8:34:54 GMT -5
If that true and being a video game kid of that time period, makes me think my youth was subliminally corrupted.  |
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Post by detonator on Jul 30, 2013 22:38:44 GMT -5
Where's Bradley Trainer from the list?
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Post by ledzep on Aug 1, 2013 12:58:38 GMT -5
Where's Bradley Trainer from the list? I like the ground splashes from the misses and the helicopter along with the ability to raise and lower the cannon but man what a tedious way to spend a quarter. I know it wasn't an arcade game but still. There were probably a lot of broken controllers with that simulator, haaha. |
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Post by gliptitude on Aug 4, 2013 17:43:52 GMT -5
I was not aware of the title, but of course was aware of a Battlezone military version.
As a custom version of game that already exists, I would only add it to the Battlezone entry as an alternate title/version, rather than list it as an additional game.
I think I stated at the beginning that clones and minor variations would not be listed individually.
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Post by matthewdfisher on Aug 5, 2013 8:33:14 GMT -5
Where's Bradley Trainer from the list? I like the ground splashes from the misses and the helicopter along with the ability to raise and lower the cannon but man what a tedious way to spend a quarter. I know it wasn't an arcade game but still. There were probably a lot of broken controllers with that simulator, haaha. I dunno, I think my hands would break first from the looks of that controller (scroll down a bit), which was the inspiration for the yoke in Star Wars. Also, there were only 2 made, so a maximum of 2 broken controllers.  |
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