Not quite Star Sabre

[Axelay]

A recent conversation which touched on old projects got me thinking again about the shooter I didn't quite finish writing some years before Star Sabre, which eventually lead to me writing that game.   So I thought I'd make what I had developed of the original game available for those that might be interested (or amused!) to see what Star Sabre would have looked like in the 90's.

As far as I can recall I developed this around 1991 & 1992.  I created 4 of the 5 planned levels before abandoning it as by that time CPC support had completely ceased where I lived.   I also have a vague recollection that I had become unhappy with the fact that it wasn't a 'scrolling' shooter as such, it just has a star field, and I knew how to hardware scroll with R3 by then (from a magazine article), but having buried data in the unused portions of the screen (yes, it's speccy port sized!) I'd have needed to do a fair bit of reorganizing.

I've cleaned up the loading to use fewer files, put some text on the front end and added limited keyboard support as it was previously joystick only, but otherwise I haven't added anything so there's no presentation to speak of, just the 4 levels.  The similarities to Star Sabre are pretty apparent, along with some obvious 'references' to other games as well! 


I would say 'enjoy', but it's no hidden gem! 

[mr_lou]

Well, definitely easier to keep up with, for someone like me who's not that great at Star Sabre. 

Looks quite decent too actually.

[SyX]

I like it  , sure is simply but sometimes you don't need anything else for giving a good use to a few minutes

[TFM]

Great game, everything well done!

[Gryzor]

Ha! Just had a lovely time. Yes, rather simplistic, but there are lots of nince elements in it - scrolling, weapons, gfx, enemy patterns... would like to see this come to completion...

[TFM]

SyX and Gryzor: You guys are "verwöhnt", that's better than most of the commercial games of similar style.

[Puresox]

Great little game ! Cheers !

[Axelay]

Oh, well if a few people got even a couple of minutes entertainment out of playing it then it was worth releasing after all.  Wasnt expecting that! 

would like to see this come to completion...

It would not really gain anything from being worked on further in my view, it would simply become "more like Star Sabre, only less!" 


But the main reason for my not being keen to do any work on this is that it was my first major bit of assembly programming so it is not good code to start with, I'd be too tempted to 'fix' it all!   Also I worked on it with a stock CPC6128 and a disk version of Maxam.   That was already a bit of a hassle with swapping disks, so to avoid having to turn or swap disks during assembly I tried to keep the source files as 'small' as possible.  The practical upshot is no commenting, no indentation, short abreviated identifiers, and not much fun to decipher now. 

[Gryzor]

@Axelay: ah, I guess you're right. It'd have been best if we had seen this some years ago, and then Star Sabre now as a sequelll....


@TFM: you're actually right!

[SyX]

SyX and Gryzor: You guys are "verwöhnt", that's better than most of the commercial games of similar style.

Sure my friend, but when i give my opinion, i can not separate my "experience" with other machines or games,  in a exclusive cpc context is AMAZING, but as game is a nice casual shooter and i like it 

[TFM]

... I worked on it with a stock CPC6128 and a disk version of Maxam.   That was already a bit of a hassle with swapping disks, so to avoid having to turn or swap disks during assembly I tried to keep the source files as 'small' as possible.  The practical upshot is no commenting, no indentation, short abreviated identifiers, and not much fun to decipher now. 

Well, Maxam in ROM and a 3.5" B-drive (0.7 MB format) provides wonders :-)

[emuola]

Very nice shooter Thanks!

[fano]

very nice game , far better from a lot of cpc games !

[Optimus]

Wow! That was nice for the time being and not only.
It's nice technique for me to use star scroller when it's hard to scroll whole gfx, it still gives a feeling of motion and star scrollers travel me into space
I am not sure if it's harder or easier than Star Sabre, I am still barely reaching level two even with more lifes.