New Release : BLUE STAR

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:11 pm

Heh, thanks!
It's a 42" LCD. Makes the VIC text easy to read

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:29 am

As a related note, I picked up a bunch of stuff from Chaosmongers, Cronosoft's eBay account yesterday. Among the items I ordered was one copy each of Blue Star and ViColumn, just for the good cause.

Iltanen · Post by **Iltanen** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:02 am

That screen looked crazy.

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:15 pm

Old School Gaming finally reviewed Blue Star:
http://www.oldschool-gaming.com/view_re ... _blue_star

Makes me want to start work on a sequel!

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:50 pm

It's nice to see Blue Star getting the recognition it deserves even if I think giving it an 8 is a little on the low side.

Kweepa wrote:Makes me want to start work on a sequel!

Do. It. Now.

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:49 pm

gklinger wrote:I think giving it an 8 is a little on the low side.

That's why I want to start on the sequel

Seriously though, thanks for the encouragement!

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:40 am

Finally, a review!

I'm in agreement with Goran. I think 8 is too low. While not meaning to sound like a brown-nose, Blue Star is my favourite Vic game ever. To me, it's Metroid for the Vic. Even some of the beasties remind me of Metroid baddies but that's no bad thing. While the tune is repetitive it does really suit the game and the overall atmosphere is great. I would score it at least a 9.

As for a sequel; I would kill babies just to have a blast of that! If you do start a follow-up would you keep it for the unexpanded Vic? Personally, I would love to see what you could do with more RAM. Your a talented bloke and having that real estate could only be a bonus...

Centallica · Post by **Centallica** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:14 am

Then again, Astrol Nell got an "8" as well, so I would consider your efforts at the same bar level (which is fantastic).

People have to have a Vic-20 mind when reviewing Vic-20 games, but most unintentionally compare quality of a game to the C64 in terms of their expectations

I think even a 3K expansion version would be great and less work than the higher memory location changes that may be needed with a 8K or 16K increase.

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:23 am

Pedro Lambrini wrote:To me, it's Metroid for the Vic.

Heh... I've no idea why that would be.
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/shee ... rId,31776/
The working title for Blue Star was Metroid Victory

If you do start a follow-up would you keep it for the unexpanded Vic?

That's a thorny question... Trying to keep it in 3.5k would be aesthetically ideal, but there's not a great deal of wiggle room left, since I'd like to double everything - rooms, room size, enemies, pickups. So a 3k expansion (with support for 8k/16k) would make more sense. We'll see...

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:21 am

Congrats for advancing from engineer to senior engineer in three years!

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:56 am

Aahh, Metroid VICtory. I see what you did there.

I wonder why nobody else has picked up on the Metroid feel...

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:15 am

Pedro Lambrini wrote:Aahh, Metroid VICtory. I see what you did there.

I wonder why nobody else has picked up on the Metroid feel...

I was born too early. The NES seems too "new" to me to be included in my retro-computing collection, so I've never played Metroid.

Richard James · Post by **Richard James** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 3:26 am

I made a gameplay video of bluestar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgUdiIHU5aQ

It is made with VICE and so it is not as good as I would have liked. Also it only displays a little area of the game.

TMR · Post by **TMR** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:41 pm

Centallica wrote:People have to have a Vic-20 mind when reviewing Vic-20 games, but most unintentionally compare quality of a game to the C64 in terms of their expectations

An eight or nine is an exceptional game by Oldschool Gaming's scoring system (that's how the "official" writer's guide classifies those two scores in fact) and games earning a maximum ten are very rare because the overall score is a rough average of what the two reviewers give it (rounded up or down depending on the overall review). It's nothing to do with expectations from the C64 to be honest, because no C64 game has ever scored a ten either, in fact we've given just one out to Jonathan Cauldwell's Shoot 'Em Up Designer on the Spectrum and his GameX was probably the closest to getting that mark before that point.

But review scores are only meant to be a guide anyway, essentially if it's above a six it's worth a look. =-)

tokra · Post by **tokra** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:32 pm

I still think this is one of the most brilliant VIC-games ever. Two questions that nagged me:

- why does the fire-button make the hero jump and "up" on the joystick fire the gun? Wouldn't it make much more sense the other way around? Maybe this can be patched easily with a few POKEs?

- Is there a POKE for unlimited energy? I've had many a try at this game, sometimes getting very far, but never finishing it