Asteroids with Lasers

[iacas]

I did not know the original arcade version of Asteroids was done that way. That's incredible. I wish I'd not been like 1 year old when it was first released so I could have noticed.

[dennyjones]

Very interesting.   I hated that game because it was so hard to be good.   The design and application is so different.   

[David in FL]

I'm no geek, but that's very cool!

Astroids was the only video game where I actually reached a degree of competence.  The key was to destroy all the Astroids but one...leaving that one small rock alone.  Then, using the ability to move and shoot through the edges of the screen, to lurk, and kill the point-valuable spaceships as the came out, without the distraction and danger of the Astroids themselves.  

Fun stuff!

[Hardspoon]

Very cool.  There have been articles over the years claiming that vector-based video would replace raster video "for good":

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/12/this-vector-based-video-codec-promises-tiny-incredibly-detailed-and-resolution-independent-movies/

(That one is one of several from late-2012, talking about how the press release says it "could make pixels obsolete within five years" - oops)

It's neat to think that the basic principles behind certain things never change; it's all about the implementation allowed by technology.

[nevets88]

51 minutes ago, David in FL said:

I'm no geek, but that's very cool!

Astroids was the only video game where I actually reached a degree of competence.  The key was to destroy all the Astroids but one...leaving that one small rock alone.  Then, using the ability to move and shoot through the edges of the screen, to lurk, and kill the point-valuable spaceships as the came out, without the distraction and danger of the Astroids themselves.  

Fun stuff!

That little one, worth 1K points(?), was a tough one. One hack was to thrust vertically in the middle of the screen to avoid asteroid and then quickly blast that spaceship.

[roamin]

Very cool, thanks for posting. Good to feed the inner-geek every and then. I saw something similar a few years ago...

FWIW, Asteroids wasn't the only vector-based arcade game...http://hackaday.com/2015/12/29/32c3-vector-video-games/

[David in FL]

14 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

That little one, worth 1K points(?), was a tough one. One hack was to thrust vertically in the middle of the screen to avoid asteroid and then quickly blast that spaceship.

Yep.

The spaceship tended to shoot back toward the center of the screen, rather than through the edges, e.g. into the right edge so the shots would come out of the left edge, so you lurk towards a corner where you can duck through an edge, either vertical or horizontal, and then keep out of his range.  Then use your ability to shoot through those edges to kill him.  The only thing you really needed to guard against was that he would materialize right in the corner where you were waiting.  That could get hairy....  

Of course every now and then the little bastard would blow up your one remaining rock, and you'd have to fight through the whole screen of Astroids to get back to just one again so you could continue to focus on spaceships.  

Really a great game for its time...

 

[nevets88]

Vector games - there was also Battlezone and Tempest. 

Wasn't the music for Asteroids Jaws like?