Ten Pence Arcade Podcast #51 is out!

[virtvic]

The new podcast is now available for downloading, streaming etc.

Get it at our web site www.tenpencearcade.co.uk or from iTunes on your favourite pod listeny thing.

 

[silverfox0786]

wasn't this a little earlier than usual

nice one cant wait

 

[Eddhorse]

Looking forward to this after all the space launcher high scores.
Eddhorse2015-12-15 19:04:29

 

[lesoleil70]

Final fight next eh......been a while since I played that one.

 

[Nintendo Arcade]

Great pod cast as always guys and its great you two have drummed up such enthusiasm for such a old and rare game amongst the community

Some great scores and I really did think you were going to beat my score towards the end. Vic has certainly thrown down the gauntlet which is great for the competition but not for my pride "IF" he ever beats me ha ha

What I would just like to add and I don't know for sure, but I do believe they made this cabenit as its the same shape cab as my sheriff cab and there is a similar flyer of poor picture quality for sheriff also and we know that exists as I own one.
And as far as the odd diamond shape cab you refer to that again is a poor artist impression of my Sega sheriff cocktail that space launcher would have came in, as the dimensions given on the flyer match my Sega sheriff exactly.
Now don't forget Luke wells owns a upright sheriff and there is no flyer/picture of that cab at all but the cab exists.
That also is a prototype as it uses Black n white space fever hardware.
So at this point Nintendo was in collaboration with Sega and Namco to help boost there share of the market.
Only one year later with Dk they dominated.
So all said I just think either none survived or one is waiting to be found.
I do believe the Sega cocktails were trade promotion cabs & just prototypes.
Another game you forgot to mention that was released the same year and is almost identical is Galaxy Wars by Universal.
Now this game looks and plays almost exactly the same but is missing the docking bays at the top so it has no risk reward element at all and makes for a poor gaming experience.
What makes Space Launcher so good is the docking bays with the rotating points to go for, with out that it becomes galaxy wars which is crap.
My bet Nintendo copied the idea like they did with every game up until Sheriff and just added the extra risk reward element that makes it such a addictive game to play.

some of what I said is not fact but I have looked into this a lot and asked people like Florent Goreges who wrote the book "The History of Nintendo" and he concurs.

Also galaxy wars was released onto the super famicom which I have a copy of and I was playing it this morning and it is crap lol

Chuckie egg2015-12-16 10:19:28

 

[tin]

The podcast is a thing of beauty, just a shame I have finished it already! Very funny this one with most entertaining mucking about!

Just a few more tips & bits for space launcher if I may:-

If you time your launch and continuously thrust (indeed!) until the bonuses are locked in, you can guarantee where the large bonus will be. I wait until the best bonus is above the 2nd from left base and launch. The big one will then be in the 4th base - I find 3rd and 4th the easiest to reach and retreat from without suffering too much from CHEAP DEATH!!

If you mash several invaders on the way in (usually 5 is possible, 3 greens and 2 yellows, but 6 is do-able) then you can get 6 or 7 on the way out (2 yellows and 4-5 greens) because they speed up as their friends get a good killing, marching foolishly into your laser death ray!

The bonuses for mashing invaders is interesting. I haven't really seen any pattern either but it seems to be somewhat related to a direct hit. On level 4 or so onwards, I can get 500 for landing directly on the head of an invader, and 150 for crashing into the side of them. Might be co-incidence but it seems to happen much more often than not.

Vic's comment about the game sometimes pausing and getting confused for a sec sometimes (when the invaders are firing their CHEAP DEATH) I think is actually your laser force field thing successfully neutralising the alien bullet. Unfortunately this doesn't happen enough to rely on it. Neither does the mentioned stars getting in the way. I actually had one today where the alien fire hit the star and disappeared, then I died anyway! Grrrr CHEAP.

Finally I think the funky overlay graphics thing is just that the graphics chip is obviously primitive and can only do something very similar to the ZX spectrum, therefore to avoid colour clash they've just programmed each separate line in the game to have one of the 7 colours on black. The ship is the only thing that moves up and down so it cycles through the colours that are assigned on each line. The title screen such as it is uses the same placement of the colours. Also could have been a quick and dirty add of colour to a B&W game.

I like it, I'm addicted to it, but it's SO SO cheap. The biggest crime is the collision detection being so rubbish with the combination of slow ship and fast bullets. Maybe I need a tutorial on how to avoid the cheapness, cos clearly Vic and Alex are managing it!

 

[shaunholley]

Victor's on his way to Merica but here's his Space Launcher 79K run on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fupsqljulgI

 

[Eddhorse]

Cool thanks for the link, great episode and good fun with the high score,
Look forward to the next one.

 

[mappy24]

Great episode and game. I thought the music and sound effects were brilliant, very well done for the time and typical "catchy" Nintendo tunes, I too noticed the Hovis ad at the end of every game which felt a bit out of place

My strategy was to watch for the highest bonus to get to the far left before thrusting continuously (oo-er) then I always knew which base to aim for and be assured that the highest score was there without having to look up while in flight. Not that it helped much!

Good luck to Vic with the world record attempt and looking forward to the reports from across the pond.

Final Fight has never really appealed to me, but will give it a go, I'll have plenty of time over the next week to get a score in!

 

[Arch]

Great episode! Thank you very much. I have put together an entire IKEA wardrobe with sliding doors while listening to you guys, and it was actually an enjoyable experience.

I also did a bit of backtracking to earlier episodes and listened to the interview with Alpha1. Such a cool episode that was - loads of good anecdotes.

About me coming to Arcadeclub - it is actually affordable flying in for a weekend. With all the crazy ManU fans in Norway, there is a direct budget flight to Manchester several times a week. I will let you know when it happens!

Keep up the good work guys! Looking forward to the next one.