MiSTer FPGA Forum

Marcellus wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:33 am I am curious if anyone is working on a core for the Astro Blaster (1981) arcade game by Sega ?

jimmystones wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:40 am

Marcellus wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:33 am I am curious if anyone is working on a core for the Astro Blaster (1981) arcade game by Sega ?

It's on my to-do list but a long way off (still got to get the previous generation of Sega/Gremlin stuff finished before I that) so I'll not be bothered if someone else gets there first!

The game and video part is not too bad, but it has analog sound and a custom speech synthesis board which is probably (quite rightly) putting people off

AmintaMister wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:08 pm Hi! Are you the author of Lady Bug core? Many thanks, it's between the most loved games of my childhood! A little request: can you add the "flip" option, so I can play it on my Hdmi monitor in Tate mode?
Still thanks!

jimmystones wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:55 pm

AmintaMister wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 12:08 pm Hi! Are you the author of Lady Bug core? Many thanks, it's between the most loved games of my childhood! A little request: can you add the "flip" option, so I can play it on my Hdmi monitor in Tate mode?
Still thanks!

I'm not the author of that core, but I've just updated the framework and added the vertical flip option - just need to wait for the pull request to be approved and the downloader to update and it'll be good to go

jimmystones wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:40 am

Marcellus wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:33 am

I am curious if anyone is working on a core for the Astro Blaster (1981) arcade game by Sega ?

It's on my to-do list but a long way off (still got to get the previous generation of Sega/Gremlin stuff finished before I that) so I'll not be bothered if someone else gets there first!

The game and video part is not too bad, but it has analog sound and a custom speech synthesis board which is probably (quite rightly) putting people off

Thanks for having Astro Blaster on your list jimmystones, as it's a long-time favorite of mine and I'd be over the moon to see it land on MiSTer in all its glory.

It's such an underrated game and I'll look forward to (eventually) burning hours on it listening to that glorious speech and thunderous bass!

Thumbs up for Astro Blaster. "Alert Alert, Pilots needed in Sector One" comes to my mind... or do I mix that up?

Wow, I'm pretty well versed in arcade games (having grown up in the '70s), but I've never heard of this one.

The 2600 version of Megamania seems to have borrowed a lot from this game.

Chilli_Vibes wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 11:56 pm

And a near-perfect version on the BBC.

http://www.bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=1964

And, if you click on the name "Richard Broadhurst", on the right-side of the screen, you will find some more near-perfect arcade ports by Richard.

many thanks for this link.. playing these games takes me right back to playing them on the school BBC computer when i was a kid..

I still have my BBC Master, Cub Monitor, Disk Drive, along with some modern hardware. Great machine.
If you click this link, you will see some more games that have been released in the last few years. Great that this machine still gets releases.

http://www.bbcmicro.co.uk/index.php

jimmystones wrote: ↑Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:40 am

It's on my to-do list but a long way off (still got to get the previous generation of Sega/Gremlin stuff finished before I that) so I'll not be bothered if someone else gets there first!

Hi Jimmy,

This is a great machine, one I encountered on a ferry to France, I could not play it enough and is a go to game for Mame alongside Galaxian.

Is it getting any closer to the top of your list?

As the BBC and Spectrum were mentioned, a similar game I really love is Myriad on the Vic20 - leave an Alien from one wave on the screen and the next wave starts with the Alien theme sound carrying over...

Another enthusiastic vote for Astro Blaster! This game is seminal and I find a lot people seem to either not know of it or have forgotten about it. Gameplay totally holds up today too, it's one of my favourites... "Fighter pilots needed in sector wars"

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 6:15 pm

Hi Jimmy,

This is a great machine, one I encountered on a ferry to France, I could not play it enough and is a go to game for Mame alongside Galaxian.

Is it getting any closer to the top of your list?

As the BBC and Spectrum were mentioned, a similar game I really love is Myriad on the Vic20 - leave an Alien from one wave on the screen and the next wave starts with the Alien theme sound carrying over...

My list still exists! Unfortunately I have had to take a break from FPGA dev for various reasons, so it's all rather stalled I released a core with a couple of games from the previous generation (Carnival on the VIC hardware) a while ago, and it's probably not too much work to convert that to the hardware to run Astro Blaster, but the sound is gonna be a lot more difficult to achieve as there is so much going on compared to the last gen.

I'm hoping to get back working on projects again soon but the various reasons are still ongoing so no idea when!