Further links:
- Vectorblade – Bonus
- Vectorblade – Ships
- Vectorblade – Level design
- Vectorblade – player shot
- Diary of V. Tiberius Rex
- Vectorblade – SPOILER
Building Vectorblade:
Vectorblade is my newest game for the vectrex. Vectorblade is a classic “bottom up shooter”, heavily inspired by “Warblade” from Edgar M. Vigdal.
Warblade or its predecessor “Deluxe Galaga” was originally developed for the Amiga computer, but was later adapated to Windows, OS X and even iOS.
Some sources concering these games:
Warblade homepage (I am not sure this is active anymore, since sadly Edgar passed away some time ago)
EMV-Software
Warblade Wiki
FAQ on Moby games
And finaly about Edgar and his game history: The ‘Golden Age’ game developer you didn’t know you knew.
Since my “Amiga days” I have been a fan of Edgar’s games, starting with Deluxe Pacman – in which’s documentation I am even mentioned for contributing some bug reports :-). After switching over to PC-technology I so “missed” Deluxe Pacman, that I programmed my very own version (see: Pacman).
Now over twenty years in the future – I again take inspriration from one of Edgars programs and do my own bottom up shooter. The name will be “Vectorblade“, which is a tribute to his fantastic Warblade, to Edgar himself – and the video game console I am writing the game for – the Vectrex.
If you ever played Warblade – or took a fleeting glance at the above linked FAQ – you will easily see, that a complete “Warblade” version for the Vectrex will be impossible to do. Nonetheless I tried to catch the Warblade “feeling” and hope I made a similar addictive and involved game.
Right from the onset of my undertaking I had a fairly firm grasp of what I wanted to achieve. If at some stage I had not been able to pull it off on my Vectrex I would have cancelled the project.
At the moment Vectorblade is the largest Vectrex game in existence (for the time being). I set out to do a 64k game, which already is twice as much as the Vectrex was originally designed for. The final games size is 192k.
The game does not use additional hardware and is available on cartridge (which includes a 256k Flash and a quad-NAND chip for bankswitching). Highscores, progress and options are saved to the flash memory. I designed the cartridge especially for Vectorblade and right now it is a “one of its kind”.
As it is now, the game can only be played from cartridge on a real vectrex – or in Vide (emulation – my own development environment).
Vectorblade source code and everything that goes with it is now available on github: https://github.com/malbanGit/Vectorblade
Is vectorblade available for purchase at present?
Thanks!
Nope, not yet… will probably some more weeks…
Hello,
is there a physical version of the game with cartridge and overlay planned? (I hope)
the game looks so great 🙂
iba
Sure…
Look at my blog with the tags “vector blade”
http://vide.malban.de/tag/vectorblade
very good news 🙂
is there a waiting list?
how many copies have you planned?
will it come out in 2020?
All the answers to the question can be read in my blog but for short:
a) No
b) 100
c) a really hope so!
Hello ,
will you release “Vectorblade” on a Vectrex- cartridge in the nearly future? I’m realy looking forward…
Regards from germany,
Markus
Hello ,
where can I order your fantastic looking ” Vectorblade”- cartridge for the Vectrex?
Please give me a short answer (thank you),
Markus
You can’t. Sorry – but I am sure it will be available soonish elsewhere…
I just got my hands on a vectorblade cart incidentally, I had no idea what it was! Man I’m glad I did though, this game is excellent!
One question though, how does saving progress work? I haven’t seen a load screen anywhere.
You can load from the settings menu – go right to the bottom.
Saving in game – in Pause mode – go right up to the top.
Perfect, thanks!
Another question, I have found that you have made vectorblade public domain (which is amazing!), are the files for the box art, overlay, etc freely available? I’d love an overlay at the least.
Thanks,
James
Please disregard my last request, I found everything. You’re a legend!
Hi, Is this able to be loaded onto multicarts like the vecmulti? Loved deluxe galaga and watched a streamer play this today, would love to try it on my vectrex.
No, not possible – except the VecFever – which has its own version.
Just played Vectorblade on my newly arrived PiTrex. KUDOS! I am so impressed, what amazing work!