VecFever documentation

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Bloxorz

Although having never played the original by Damien Clarke I was aware of Frank Buss’s attempts of getting this game up on the Vectrex for quite a while – mainly because his first Vectrex ROM including three levels appeared almost a decade ago. And not to forget: this kind of puzzle game is just nice.

Then nothing happened for a very long time and out of the blue Herr Buss became interested in finishing this. Even went through a Kickstarter with the explicit goal of supplying a few Vectrex cartridges once he is done. I myself have however not followed this at all so at that point it went off radar again here. It reappeared years later for me when Malban, with Buss’s practically finished game on GitHub, took the time to optimize the graphics output of the game to display at a higher, more stable refresh rate. This is the now freely available 6809 Vectrex version (including the source) and when I browsed through it I realized that I didn’t want to play this 6809 version since I thought some simple things were missing and would not take me all that much time to add.

Which I did: the VecFever version has an attract mode – showing a few explanatory levels first but once you solved levels it’ll show you my ‘lowest steps’ attempts to get through these levels during attract. And it keeps the best score for each level – and shows a total – which in my mind really helps this game: first you figure out just any way to get through this. And then you figure out a better way. Which does help keeping the game interesting for longer, at least for me.

So only the attract and remembering the score here is added by myself, plus the title, and Malban’s graphics improvements sadly had to be ripped out again and a simpler version put in which just uses the vf lib. optimizing backend.

Inputs

In higher levels the game introduces a new feature – splitting the ‘player’ into two cubes – and when this happens you need to press button 4: to switch between the two parts.

Button 1: exits the current level and return to the ‘select level’ page

and in ‘Demo.’ game mode all levels are immediately available and buttons 2:/3: increase/decrease the level. However in demo. game mode no scores are kept.

Options

  • Music: Yes / No
  • Game Mode: Puzzle / Arcade / Demo.
  • Reset Highscores
  • Game Info

Localization

//NAME="BLOXORZ"
//

GERMAN[] = {
    { 0, 0, "Spielmodus"},
    { 0, 0, 0},
    { 0, 0, 0},
    { 0, 0, 0},
    { 0, 0, "Startpuzzelauswahl"},
    { 0, 0, "Gesamtschritte: %i"},
    { 0, 0, "Gratulation,"},
    { 0, 0, "Sie haben alle"},
    { 0, 0, "Puzzel gelöst!"},
    { 0, 0, "Arcadesatz:"},
    { 0, 0, "Zeit: %i Sekunden"},
    { 0, 0, "%i Sekunden"},
    {,,"Musik: Ja"},
    {,,"Musik: Nein"},
    { 0, 0, "                           Willkommen zu Bloxorz, einem Puzzelspiel von Damien Clarke welches von Frank Buss für die Vectrex neuentwickelt wurde. Das 2007er Original ist eine Flashapplikation und die 2013 von Frank Buss entwickelte erste Version basiert auf den ersten drei Leveln. Dies war vermutlich auch eher eine Fingerübung und general ausprobieren ein Vectrexmodul mit Hochsprachen und Skripts zu generieren, was etwas funktionierte. Einige Jahre später wolle Herr Buss offensichtlich das Spiel vervollständigen und startete einen 'Kickstarter' dafür. Danach wurden die fehlenden Puzzel implementiert und einige Extras, wie der Arcademodus oder die Musik. Also die 'high level' C Dinge und an den eigentlichen Vectrexdingen, insb. der ursprünglich niedrigen Framerate, weniger. Ich selbst habe das Projekt nicht verfolgt aber einige Bekannte haben es und da nun Jahre seit dem Kickstartertermin vergangen sind, hatte sich Malban erbarmt bzw. sich bemüht gesehen, sich der Grafikausgabe anzunehmen und sie zu optimieren - und er hat es deutlich beschleunigt und besser spielbar gemacht. Wodurch es auf meinen Schirm landete und ich es ebenso kurz auf die VF portierte. Allerdings gefällt mir der Puzzelmodus mit der freien Wahl der Puzzel selbst weniger weswegen ich ihn als 'Demo.' implementiert habe und als default den Modus, wo man ein Puzzel auskniffeln muss, bevor das nächste freigeschaltet wird. Und nur hier werden sich auch die wenigsten Schritte gemerkt.                           "}
};

FRENCH[] = {
    { 0, 0, "Choix du Mode de Jeu"},
    { 0, 0, "Puzzle (Progressif)"},
    { 0, 0, "Démo. (Libre)"},
    { 0, 0, "Arcade (Chrono.)"},
    { 0, 0, "Choix du Niveau"},
    { 0, 0, "Nombre de Coups Joués: %i"},
    { 0, 0, "Félicitations,"},
    { 0, 0, "Vous avez terminé"},
    { 0, 0, "tous les niveaux!"},
    { 0, 0, "Arcade (Choix/Difficulté):"},
    { 0, 0, "Temps: %i Secondes"},
    { 0, 0, "%i Secondes"},
    {,,"Musique: Oui"},
    {,,"Musique: Non"},
    { 0, 0, "                          Bienvenue dans Bloxorz, un jeu de réflexion de Damien Clarke, adapté pour le Vectrex par Frank Buss. L'original, datant de 2007, est une application Flash et c'est en 2013 que Frank Buss a développé une version initiale basée sur les trois premiers niveaux. Si on lit entre les lignes, il s'agissait par la même occasion de tenter la programmation d'une cassette de Vectrex en utilisant des langages modernes (C et scripts) et il faut reconnaître que cela a plutôt bien fonctionné. Quelques années plus tard, M. Buss s'est visiblement décidé à finaliser ce jeu, et, dans ce but, a même lancé un projet 'Kickstarter'. En conséquence, il a ajouté tous les niveaux du jeu original ainsi que quelques bonus supplémentaires comme le mode 'arcade' et la musique. Je n'ai, de mon côté, pas suivi ce projet mais quelques unes de mes connaissances l'ont fait: Il en résulte que cela fait désormais plusieurs années que le projet 'Kickstarter' a été financé. Le jeu, malgré cela, n'est toujours pas terminé et les mises à jour sont très rares.                    En ce qui me concerne, j'ai obtenu des nouvelles lorsque Malban a pris le temps d'optimiser l'affichage de tous les niveaux - et il a fait du bon travail. Pour être honnête, il aurait été sans doute plus facile de traduire le code précédent pour la librairie vf, mais je voulais conserver autant que possible les sources actuelles. En effet, il s'agit -toujours- d'un travail en cours même si près d'une décennie s'est écoulée; et rien ne dit qu'il ne pourrait pas encore évoluer.                           "}

};

ENGLISH[] = {
    { 0, 0, "Game Mode"},
    { 0, 0, "Puzzle"},
    { 0, 0, "Demo."},
    { 0, 0, "Arcade"},
    { 0, 0, "Choose Start Level"},
    { 0, 0, "Total Steps: %i"},
    { 0, 0, "Congratulations,"},
    { 0, 0, "You have figured"},
    { 0, 0, "out all levels !"},
    { 0, 0, "Arcade Set:"},
    { 0, 0, "Time: %i Seconds"},
    { 0, 0, "%i Seconds"},
    {,,"Music: Yes"},
    {,,"Music: No"},
    { 0, 0, "                           Welcome to Bloxorz, a puzzle game by Damien Clarke and recreated for the Vectrex by Frank Buss. The 2007 original is a Flash application and in 2013 Frank Buss developed a first version based on the first three levels. Reading between the lines this was also an attempt to program a Vectrex cartridge using modern languages (C and scripts) and this worked somewhat. A few years later Mr. Buss apparently became interested in finishing this game and even started a Kickstarter project for it. Since then he did indeed add all the levels of the original game and some additional goodies like the arcade mode and the music. I myself have not followed this project but a few others I am in contact with did: it is now many years after the Kickstarter delivery date and the game has not been finished and updates are very rare.                    I became aware again when Malban spent the time to improve the frame rate for all levels - and he did a nice job. It would probably have been easier to translate the previous code for the vf lib. to be honest but I wanted to keep it as near to the current sources as possible. Because this is .still. a work in progress after close to a decade and who knows what might change.                         "}
};
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