Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Who says a game has to be from a commercial company to be good? For those with an anti-corporate leaning, there's nothing like a game from an amateur programmer, especially long after the system has been supported.

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Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

I was asked about the Vectrex homebrews I own in another thread that I posted, so I thought I would do a "mini review" of them for those interested...

Vecmania--nine games in all, go with the unfinished demos first:

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Duel Disks demo--two player Discs of Tron demo. Three discs to jump on and shoot at the other player. Fun for a bit, the shield function hadn't been implemented at the time. 6/10 as it is.

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Abyss demo--Tempest level 1 demo. You can't get killed, advance to another level, and can only shoot the Flipper-, Spiker-, and Spike-type enemies. Sometimes I end up kind of "zoning out" to this for 20 minutes at a time though. 5/10 as it is, since there's not much to do.

Now onto the full games!

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Rockaroids Remix: Third Rock--Asteroids clone, obviously. It plays like Asteroids, but looks like Asteroids Deluxe with the tumbling rocks. A bit tough, like most of Dondzila's games, but that's just to keep you coming back for more. Glitches include Hyperspace almost always blowing you up the first time you use it and rocks appearing out of nowhere below you at times, but it's still pretty fun. 7/10

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Patriots Remix--Missile Command clone. Planes/satellites and smart missiles start appearing within the first wave. Two missile bases on this one, 6/5 or 7/10 on this one for the fun factor.

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Vector Vaders 2 Remix--Space Invaders clone, which took me by surprise, thought I'd only play it a couple of times, then never again out of boredom, but how Dondzila makes the simplest games addicting is beyond me. 7/10 for addicting factor.

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Star Fire Spirits--Atari Arcade Star Wars clone. The T. I. E. Fighter-like ships just come straight at you, rather than tumbling during the first wave, the bunkers and laser towers appear randomly during the second, and there's slowdown and no catwalks in the final stage, but the game's still a bit of fun, even though you won't get rewarded an extra shield every time you blow up the Death Star-like planet, unlike how Dondzila claims in the instructions. 7.5/10

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Birds of Prey--Phoenix clone. Two waves of birds (the second one with two shots at a time), two waves of big birds after that, then the mothership during the fifth wave, you should know how this goes. There's a place all ready for you to shoot up the middle during the latter, but it's still challenging and fun though, 7/10 on this one.

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Repulse ain't in this obscure Eliminator clone. Can't say how it compares to the arcade original (saw it once but never played it in the day), but it takes some steady nerves. Here you must destroy an enemy ship nestled in a big fortress by shooting up the middle of it; take too long, and it comes after you. Sentry ships are annoying, but shooting them into the mothership is fun though (shots won't destroy you, and vice versa, but they will send you or an enemy flying out of control briefly). 7.5, maybe 8/10

hidden bonus game--same one as on the Patriots cartridge, from one of the earliest of game genres. 7/10

The cartridge as a whole I give a 9/10, plenty of bang for your buck. I want to go play it now, actually.

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Spike Hoppin'--Q*Bert clone, hop on the tiles to darken them to go to the next level. This time around Spud (replaces Coily in the original) can be knocked off immediately by hopping on a blinking line (replaces the disc in the original). A timepiece freezes the action for several seconds, balls and upside-down monsters can kill you, along with a little puke known as 'Log' will turn your tiles back to the original color, plus later levels involve two jumps to change a tile to it's right color. There's also a watered down hidden other arcade clone on this cartridge and the game talks, too! Addicting and hard at 7.5/10

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Moon Lander--blows away Lunar Lander inspiration, with changing planet landscapes to land on, gravity, and killer satellites to make your progress even harder. 32 levels in all too, but you probably won't even make it to level 20 as it is. Cartridge has only this one game (plus secrets though), neat cinematics

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and all and is worth the piddling $10 (plus shipping) Dondzila charges for it.

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Protector/Y. A. S.I.--Defender (great!)/Space Invaders clones. There are those that said Defender couldn't be done on the Vectrex, nice that they were wrong. All the action of saving humanoids by shooting Landers, Mutants, Baiters to annoy you, along with Swarmers, etc. is on here. Slight smart bomb bug and some have complained about the controls being hard to get used to (I don't agree) hinder this only slightly.

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Y. A. S. I. looks almost exactly like the original, as you CAN do raster graphics on the Vectrex (surprise!), there's also a slight bug (or maybe it's intentional) in shooting the saucer at times, but there's bonus modes too, like invisible invaders, moving bunkers, guided missiles, etc. to unlock. Must have for Vectrex owners, definitely a 9/10.

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Vector 21--only card game for the Vectrex, like a Blackjack/Solitaire hybrid. Try to have card stacks (four of them) add up to 21 or less before the clock runs out, go over and bust and not get any points.

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Funny to see people whine on some forums about the original GCE Vectrex games being mostly shooters, yet when something different like this comes out it takes over two years before it's piddling 121 copies to sell out is beyond me, it's fun and addicting as hell. 9/10

Whew...well, that's half of what I have, I'll do the other four later, along some links to full-fledged reviews and some more pics, for anyone who's interested.

Hope that helps!
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Zap! »

That is flat-out awesome. If it wasn't for me spending hundreds on opening day Yankee Stadium tickets, I'd be ordering them right now. I'll post a proper reply later, time for bed now. :)
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

Ter wrote:That is flat-out awesome.
Yep. Aside from the lack of money factor that probably all of us go through from time to time, there's no reason for ANY Vectrex owner not to have one, if not several of these.

BTW, I don't mean to sound like these suffer from those annoying "too nice" review factors, the cartridges/games ARE that good. I don't have every homebrew released to date but I've yet to play a bad one. Not everyone is going to agree on everything, and you can't please everybody, but just about all reviews I've seen on these games have also been high. They can be tried out on emulators, although they might not run at quite the right speed, plus it depends on what the game is, as you're usually ok with ones with left/right fire controls, or lr thrust fire, but not something like Star Fire Spirits, with the wave on Dark Planet where you're shooting tops off of laser towers with a keyboard, that doesn't really work! And once I give links later to other sites, you'll see where I rated several games low: Starhawk, Clean Sweep and Berzerk. And I liked Starhawk in the arcades, but it's easier on the Vectrex, and not having much money as a kid, I didn't know that multiple plays of it at one sitting can be boring.
Ter wrote:If it wasn't for me spending hundreds on opening day Yankee Stadium tickets, I'd be ordering them right now.
Hee hee, have fun!
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

Oh yeah, I was going to finish this, wasn't I? :)

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I, Cyborg--the setup of the behind the character perspective is a bit reminiscent (sp?) of the unreleased Dark Tower prototype, but it's a bit different though. In this game, you control a large cyborg in somewhat of a puzzle aspect in trying to figure out how to get through a prison without being zapped to bits by traps, the other sections are mostly shooters. Unfortunately section three is just a rehash of section one, and the last area only has one level (guess Fury Unlimited's George was running out of ideas by then), but it's still a good strategy/shooter, with some original bosses and denizens not seen before in a Vectrex game (quick, name one game for the whole system that has a giant eyeball and huge spiders to deal with...yeah, that's what I thought). 7.5/10, although it might not have any replay value for most if you're able to beat it, although I don't mind going through it occasionally from start to finish myself.

All Good Things--first compilation by Dondzila, having

Rockaroids--Asteroids clone, obviously. Sometimes you can get your butt kicked, at other times the not so hard factor can net you games of 100,000 points. 6/10

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Spike's Water Balloons--Kaboom! clone. Here Spike's head is used in place of three buckets, which isn't as wide as the original's to pop balloons. However, you can kick missed balloons back up, like on the arcade Kick Man, but it won't take long before it turns into a button-mashing affair. You were better off playing the original, especially since that one didn't have unneeded pauses in between levels and lives. Barely a 6/10 for trying to add something to the game.

Vectris--ok, I can't figure this one out: the only Tetris game I've ever liked is the original, with levels that actually END, with bonuses and all, all other ones where it's just one long, unending level that just speeds up I hate. Well, somehow Dondzila made this that way, yet it's still fun. Don't know how he did that. There's been complaints on how this game kills the eyes, but if you have a colorful overlay (like Scramble) I've never had a problem with it. 7/10

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More Invaders!--like Space Invaders Part 2, where, starting with the second level, the invaders start splitting if you don't hit them right up the middle. There's also whopping hidden bonuses of 500 or 1000 if you can figure them out and saucers that shoot back. It takes a while before the invaders start moving fast but I still like this one a bit. 7/10

Bonus hidden game--a brainteaser that was done on the TRS-80 (I think) and some calculator-type game a friend of mine had. Eh, it's ok, I guess...5.5 or 6/10

6.5 or 7/10 for the whole cartridge. (You can see a couple of pics of the Vectris title screen and Rockaroids here.)

Space Frenzy--with Vecmania and Vectopia being the first 64K Vectrex cartridges ever, and then Gravitrex Plus being the first 64K Vectrex game PERIOD, I knew we were in trouble upon hearing this one's name. Not that it's bad or anything, just surprised that Dondzila scaled this one down, he was doing bigger and bigger cartridges for a while there.

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Complete with insulting alien and all, this is a clone of Space Fury, kind of an "Asteroids in reverse", where segments come together to try to form ships that will attack you later. If you can shoot at least one segment before it joins out of a group, that incomplete ship will make a beeline for you; if a whole one forms, then it starts shooting at you.

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After every successful wave, you're taken to a docking screen where 'shells' give you more firepower. Again, Dondzila makes a simple game addicting as anything. 7/10

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Also included is the unfinished Super Mario World of Super Spike World, where all you do is gather stuff and jump on enemies' heads, although you can pass through the latter with no trouble. All you can do is wander around a level until it starts repeating itself. 5/10 just out of interest to see what could have been, and a 7/10 for the cartridge altogether.

Vectopia--demos and only a few full games here, namely

Wormhole, the Gyruss clone. It's got the basic gameplay of super fast moving enemies, the twin ships with the deadly beam, and the double power-up shot, but additional power-ups slows down the action and destroys everything onscreen. There's no planets to reach, nor bonus stages though. Still a 7/10 though.

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Trakkers--like the cult hit Targ or Spectar, you move along a grid and shoot other vehicles. Occasionally a special vehicle will materialize and make a beeline for you, which isn't good. Addictive but takes steady nerves to make it through this game. 7/10

Spike's Water Balloon analog--why is this here? Supposedly crafted for the original Vectrex analog controller in mind, I didn't find the control to be any better than the original. Skip. 5/10

Vectropolis 500 demo--this one's unfinished, the only FOUR PLAYER Vectrex game. Just nine tracks to race around, no sound and a couple of glitches, I think Dondzila should have finished this one up, it's even ok to whip around tracks by yourself for a while if you don't have another player around. I've only tried it with one other player and that's even better, don't know how it'd be with three or four involved! 7/10

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There's various other demos that only rank a 1-5 out of 10, like Dondzila's stab at Mad Planets, which is just a flickery as hell demo where you just move and shoot, that's it. There's also the Super Cheesy Controller Test, which is cute, level 1 of what would be Star Fire Spirits (I think this is better than the finished project, it's more challenging with the T. I. E. Fighter-like ships to be smaller and tumble around, rather than being larger and coming straight at you), and some demo of a tiny ship flying around, dunno what that even was supposed to be, unless it was a very early Space Frenzy demo. Also level 2 of S. Fire Spirits is included too.

So, really all you have is Wormhole, Trakkers and V. 500, but that's enough to give this one a 7/10, the other demos you won't mess around with much. However, it was nice for Dondzila to include pause features on BOTH full games (why he didn't do this for something like Spike Hoppin' that has FOUR unused buttons is beyond me) and title screen music too, plus the games run quick too, unlike previous stuff (although they're all still fun).

A collage of shots from the V. 500 demo and Wormhole can be seen here. Some full reviews I did and other pics can be seen here, although I didn't do all of them (Protector and Vecmania were already done, although I agree on their high ratings though), and for them being simple games, I went on for too long on Spike Hoppin' and Moon Lander, so those are your warnings there if you have nothing better to do.

Well, hope you enjoyed, so get these homebrews, I wouldn't bother putting them up if I didn't think they were good products :)
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Rob »

Aside from Protector/Yasi, I don't have any of these. Which makes me a loser, I admit. :lolpoint:

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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

Nay, maybe you're just slow in getting them, or something.

Least you got one of the top of the line, though!
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

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Darryl B. wrote:Nay, maybe you're just slow in getting them, or something.

Least you got one of the top of the line, though!
Where did you get them all, got a link or did you get them on eBay?
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

No, I, Cyborg and Vector 21 are from Fury Unlimited, although they're sold out now. The rest are from John Dondzila, they're either his or they were originally availale from Mark Shaker, but John volunteered to take over his business when his dad went into the hospital. I've never had a problem dealing with him.
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by gamemaster »

I will be picking some of them up when i get some ex money thanks for the links

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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

You're welcome, and make sure to bump this up and let us know what you think of the games!
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by VectrexMad! »

Don't forget the excellent homebrew Vectrexians! Superb game play in homage to the original Galaxian arcade game. Plus a truly beautiful overlay which really does enhance the game.
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

Hey Vectrexmad! Seen you on the newsgroup and Atari Age. Don't own Vectrexians (yet!) though, or else, yeah, I would've posted about it.
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by VectrexMad! »

Hello Darryl,

You are familiar to me too :), YouTube, AtariAge......

The Vectrex newsgroup gets a bit quiet for me, thats why I visit the other forums to seek things Vectrex related - it was really nice to see the screen shots of the Dondzila homebrews and hear another's opinion about the games.

Kristof, has made another batch of Vectrexians (http://www.kristofsnewvectrexgames.comli.com/ ). This homebrew is expensive compared to the other homebrews, but I suspect this is largely due to the packaging and overlay (the overlay is as good if not better than the MB/GCE ones, and in the game does make the white vector lines appear with colour). For me the game is one of the best.

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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

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VectrexMad! wrote: You are familiar to me too :), YouTube, AtariAge......
Ah cool! Hopefully I can finally redo the Vectrex homebrews slideshow on my crappy channel in June, since I don't live by myself at the moment, and the rest of the household will be out of town. 'Cuz I'll try downloading a program then that will convert Quicktime .mov files to another format that MovieMaker can use, since that's all I have for filming right now, just a few seconds on a digital camera, as I have to borrow a computer for the up-to-date stuff (internet, digital camera, etc.), and it'll be all open to me then!
VectrexMad! wrote: The Vectrex newsgroup gets a bit quiet for me, thats why I visit the other forums to seek things Vectrex related - it was really nice to see the screen shots of the Dondzila homebrews and hear another's opinion about the games.
Likewise, it's also good to get responses on this too :)
VectrexMad! wrote: Kristof, has made another batch of Vectrexians (http://www.kristofsnewvectrexgames.comli.com/ ). This homebrew is expensive compared to the other homebrews, but I suspect this is largely due to the packaging and overlay (the overlay is as good if not better than the MB/GCE ones, and in the game does make the white vector lines appear with colour).
Thought it was also due to the Euro being converted to the U. S. dollar too for those of us that have to have it shipped here...not sure though.
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by VectrexMad! »

You are right about the Euro, its not favourable for us Brits either....
Looking forward to any Vectrex video/slide show updates.

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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Carlos »

Those pics are sweet. I wanna Vectrex now, lol.
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

^Thanks!
VectrexMad! wrote:Looking forward to any Vectrex video/slide show updates.
I'll let ya know!
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

Not necessarily "kick butt" games, but not bad, as I started playing Vector Vaders today (I had gotten it in the mail yesterday). Pretty much for Space Invader nuts and serious collectors only, this one isn't bad altogether, addiction-wise, but it runs pretty slow (until there's only like three columns of invaders left), your shots fire slow, and you get more bang for your buck with several more games (along with the other Space Invaders ones) on the All Good Things, Y. A. S. I./Protector and Vecmania cartridges, all of which have Invader clones on them (not to mention millions of other Invader games to compare it to as well, like 2600 Space Invaders for fifty cents and 112 game variations, whereas this one is just the one game, one player only, and twenty bucks?). Barely a 6 out of 10 from me.

Also got Vaboom!/Vectrace as well. Vectrace is ok, and I haven't really messed with it, but Vaboom! is one addicting, very fun Kaboom! clone (obviously). Along with catching bombs, the bomber also occasionally tosses down a high-scoring diamond, and unlike getting new buckets via scores, the only way you can get one back is to grab the occasional heart that floats down. Unfortunately, hitting an X that floats down robs you of a bucket too, but occasionally a bomb will fly back up the screen. Smack the bomber 10 times with these bombs and you get a bonus round where the bombs are a whopping 30 points each (usually they're only 10) and you won't lose a bucket at all during that time, even if you miss a bomb. I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10, and a 7 for the cartridge as a whole, definitely worth the piddling ten bucks plus shipping.
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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by mojofltr »

Does anyone here have a limited edition Protector cart with Spike Goes Down on it? I've searched many times, but never found/seen any screenshots or video of the game.

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Re: Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!

Post by Darryl B. »

Ah man, that'd be nice, wouldn't it?

Good luck with your search.
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