Vectopia is composed of clones of several arcade shooters, some unfinished demos of what would have been other shooter clones, and some non-shooter games and demos included. All games except for the Vectropolis 500 demo are for one player only (which can have up to four players simultaneously). The cartridge was released in 2001 from Classic Game Creations.
Complete games[]
Trakkers[]
This is a clone of the arcade game Targ, where the player controls a ship that moves through a series of grids while shooting other ships (called Trakkers). Occasionally an HKT (Hunter Killer Trakker) will materialize and aggressively chase the player until either it or the player's ship is destroyed. After several levels the regular Trakkers will begin shooting at the player. The player's ship cannot reverse while traveling throughout the grid (except for when it hits the edge of it).
Colliding with or being shot by a Trakker will result in the player losing a reserve ship and the game ends when there are no remaining player ships.
Wormhole[]
This is a clone of the arcade game Gyruss (which is somewhat of a cross between Tempest and Galaxian), where the player controls a ship that can spin around the screen in a circle and fire at ships that rapidly emerge from the center area of the screen (which look like the blasters from Tempest). After the first level is cleared they will start firing at the player's ship, and there are also two ships that appear later in the game that creates a force field in between them (which shooting one or both ships will disable the field), along with an indestructible asteroid that emerges from the wormhole.
There is also a trio of Sentry ships that will appear from time to time that are worth either bonus points and certain ships that appears with them will grant power-ups. The Sentry ships that look like level one from Bedlam are just worth big points, but the ships that look like a Spiker from Tempest will destroy everything onscreen, the small ship will grant the player double shots, and the ship that looks like a sideways eight (or the infinity sign) slows the action down for several seconds. All of these ships that grant power-ups will appear in the middle, flanked by a Sentry ship on each side.
Once the player loses all of their ships the game is over. Enemy ships can pass through the player's ship unharmed though (except for the ones that generate the force field).
There are no bonus rounds like in the arcade original, but 1000 points are awarded for destroying a formation of ships before they make it back into the wormhole.
Shooter demos[]
Mad Planetoid Test Wk[]
This is a demo of what could have been a clone of the Mad Planets arcade game, but there is hardly any gameplay here at all.
Amidst a swirling star backdrop are two planetoids, the player's ship, and what appears to be planetoid moons (that are needed to be shot in the arcade game in order to destroy the full-sized planetoids) that flicker and rapidly appear and disappear on the screen. All the player can do is move their ship and fire, and that's it, as there's no way to die or destroy anything and there's no sound.
The demo can be exited by pressing reset or just by shutting off the Vectrex.
Star Fire Early Work[]
This is what would become the second area (the surface run on Dark Planet) of Star Fire Spirits from the previously released Vecmania cartridge.
In this demo, the player can move their crosshairs, rotate the screen around (which would later be left out of the finished game) and fire, although this will not blow off the tops of the laser towers, which do not fire at the player, and the bunkers are missing, along with sound.
To exit out of this demo, the reset button must be pressed or the Vectrex just can be turned off.
Star Fire Early Work II[]
This is what would become the first area (in free space before skimming Dark Planet's surface) of Star Fire Spirits from Vecmania.
In this demo, the player can move their crosshairs and fire at the T. I. E. Fighter-like ships. Several of the ships will tumble around the screen, unlike how they just came straight for the player in the finished game, as well as several of them staying in the background, never getting any closer. The fighters' shots this time around look like snowflakes and are easier to spot than the way they would end up looking on the finished product. The player has six shields to begin with, which, with every hit by enemy fire, they will go down by one, and the demo ends when the player is hit when no more shields are remaining. There is also a zero onscreen right by the shields, which is assumed that would be for the score, but it never increases.
The demo can only be exited by pressing reset or just by shutting the Vectrex off.
Star Fury Test Work[]
Possibly an early test for the later Space Frenzy game, here the player controls a small ship as several dots on the screen join together, then they disappear, being replaced by some kind of a plus sign that follows the player around from there.
And that's it for the entire demo; there's no sound, the player can only fly around and shoot, although there doesn't seem to be any way to destroy the plus sign or do anything else.
Pressing reset will exit back to the Vectopia menu or the Vectrex can be turned off to end the demo.
Other non-shooters included[]
Control Test[]
As the title says, this will test your controllers. A representation of both controllers are onscreen; manipulating a control will result in a reaction from the onscreen controller, whether the player moves the joystick on their controller and the joystick on the screen will move, or when the player presses a button, then that corresponding button on the screen will depress as well, indicating the controller functions are working.
The player will have to press reset on their Vectrex in order to exit out of this demo or just turn their machine off.
Spike's Water Balloons[]
Aside from this being for the original Vectrex analog controller (the modern day digital converted controllers won't work with it) and there not being a way to speed up Spike, this is the exact same Spike's Water Balloons from the previous All Good Things cartridge.
Being a clone of Kaboom!, this time around instead of using buckets to catch bombs dropped by the "Mad Bomber" at the top of the screen, the player uses Spike, the unofficial Vectrex mascot, to pop balloons with the top of his head that are dropped from his enemy Spud. Spike can also kick a missed balloon back up towards Spud. Missing a balloon counts against the player, and once three balloons hit the ground the game is over.
Vectropolis 500[]
This is an unfinished racing demo for up to four players (no computer A. I. was implemented) with nine tracks. Players race around a track, and whoever comes in first place three times will win and their time will be displayed onscreen; however, sometimes a glitch will occur and some other player will "win", even though they weren't in first place. Each time a player completes a lap their score's tally (in the center screen) will go up by one (which each player starts off a race with one point each as it is).
The game will keep on cycling through all nine tracks until the Vectrex is reset or turned off.
Trivia[]
- This was the second 64K cartridge for the Vectrex, the first being Vecmania.
- In regards to Vectropolis 500, programmer John Dondzila had stated on the game's instructions that he didn't really like the blocky look of the project and lost interest in finishing the game.
Links[]
- Vectopia official page
- Review (7/10) and music clips at the vectrex.nl site
This article uses material from the Vectrex Wikia Vectopia article and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.