Origins[]
Although somewhat of an Asteroids clone, Space Fury still managed to be a bit of a unique offering when it hit the arcades in the early 1980s.
First off, it was one of the earlier games that talked. Also having a one-eyed alien appear at the beginning of every game saying "hmmmm, a creature for my amusement" was good for a laugh. And it was a bit of an "Asteroids in reverse" game, due to not breaking up big objects into small ones, but small objects would come together to form big ones, and plus players got to dock with shells to increase the firepower of their ship.
Flash forwarding to a little over 15 years later (in 2006), Space Frenzy would mark yet another logical vector clone to be brought to the Vectrex--minus the color from the arcade original, of course (along with only being for one player).
Gameplay[]
The game begins with two groups of segments appearing onscreen in an attempt to join together to form a cruiser so it can attack the player. If only a partial cruiser forms (i. e. the player shoots at least one segment out of a batch before its other segments join together), then it will chase after the player's ship. However, if an entire cruiser forms, it will float listlessly around the screen, not chasing the player, but it will shoot at the player's ship.
(One difference to note is that, unlike the arcade original, colliding with a ship segment is fatal, as the player[s] could pass through ship segments unharmed originally before a ship was complete.)
After each wave (note: unlike with the original, there is no bonus for completing a wave), the player is given the choice of three ships to dock with to increase their firepower. A bonus is given for time remaining after a docking. These ships consist of:
- Top ship: fires a single line of shots in front of the player's ship and two at a time behind it
- Left ship: fires three shots straight forward
- Right ship: fires a shot forward, one to the left, and one to the right of the player's ship
(Note: unlike with the original, if a player is able to dock with three ship shells, the last one they choose will be their shell for the rest of the game; with Space Frenzy, the player is allowed to continually change ships with every round.)
Scoring[]
Level one
- Forming enemies - 10
- Incomplete cruisers - 40
- Completed cruisers - 20
- Enemy shots - 30
Level two
- Forming enemies - 20
- Incomplete cruisers - 80
- Completed cruisers - 40
- Enemy shots - 60
Level three
- Forming enemies - 30
- Incomplete cruisers - 150
- Completed cruisers - 80
- Enemy shots - 100
Level four and on
- Forming enemies - 40
- Incomplete cruisers - 300
- Completed cruisers - 150
- Enemy shots - 200
Extras[]
- There are several ways to play this game, one of which is the regular game, where the alien won't speak out loud, but overhead text will appear instead. The alien will also give a ranking at the end of the game ("you were a stimulating opponent"). Playing with the Digi-Speech version allows the alien to talk out loud, but with no ranking given at the end of a game, and there might be some problems with this feature, depending on the Vectrex it is played on (see the last note in the Trivia section in regards to this). And there is also the option for the player to use a VecVoice (or VecVox or AtariVox+ add-on) so the game will run smoothly with speech.
- An attempted clone of the SNES Super Mario World, the unfinished Super Spike World demo, is also included on the cartridge.
Trivia[]
- Unlike how it states in the instructions, no extra life is awarded at 10,000 points, unless this was changed in later editions.
- The alien does not appear on the ROM version for those wanting to play this on an emulator.
- At the time of it's release, this was proclaimed by creator John Dondzila as to being his first "paperless" game, as the game instructions are "online", rather than having them printed out and included with the game (although this doesn't include the Vectropolis 500 demo off of Dondzila's Vectopia release, as its instructions are also online). However, starting in 2009, several of Classic Game Creation's offerings (Vaboom!/Vectrace, Vector Vaders and Thrust) were packaged with oversized boxes so the game instructions would fit on them, rather than being included on a separate, included sheet of paper. It is assumed that this was done to keep prices low, as Dondzila has never raised his prices for his cartridges (not counting shipping) since he started making his Vectrex homebrews in 1996. However, at the time, this was a first for Dondzila.
- With all Vectrexes having slightly different displays, funky things can happen with the display when the Digi-Speech version is played. A few people had posted on a forum that the game ran fine with all of their Vectrexes they tried it out on. Others said they had to crank up the volume really loud to hear the alien, while another stated that the alien's volume was only slightly lower than the regular game sounds, but the graphics were distorted, with the alien's eye and pupil being separated and it looked like the alien's head was split open.
Links[]
- Official Space Frenzy page
- A review and the voice clips from the Digi-Speech mode can be heard at the vectrex.nl site
This article uses material from the Space Frenzy Vectrex Wikia article and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.