Popular games for platform Vectrex

The very first racing game with the rear perspective camera and track based on real life.

The player controls an aircraft, referred to in the game as a "Jet," and has to guide it across a scrolling terrain, battling obstacles along the way. The ship is armed with a forward-firing weapon and bombs; each weapon has its own button. The player must avoid colliding with the terrain and other enemies, while simultaneously maintaining its limited fuel supply which diminishes over time. More fuel can be acquired by destroying fuel tanks in the game. The game is divided into six sections, each with a different style of terrain and different obstacles. There is no intermission between each section; the game simply scrolls into the new terrain. Points are awarded based upon the number of seconds of being alive, and on destroying enemies and fuel tanks. In the final section, the player must destroy a "base". Once this has been accomplished, a flag denoting a completed mission is posted at the bottom right of the screen. The game then continues by returning to the first section once more, with a slight increase in difficulty.

The player controls a jeep and must destroy the many tanks and helicopters that attack them in a maze-like cityscape. The jeep is armed with a rocket launcher that fires straight forward; the player can have two rockets on-screen at the time. The driving is generally similar to the well-known Combat for the Atari 2600. Tanks periodically spawn from different locations on the edge of the screen and drive towards the player. The tanks always travel along horizontal or vertical lines, unlike the freely moving jeep. Tank turrets move to track the player, allowing them to shoot in any direction. Tanks normally take two hits to kill, and the player can have only two rockets on the screen at a time. The helicopter spawns from any point, and approaches the player in looping paths flying over the jeep and periodically firing. If hit, the helicopter spirals in.

The goal in Narrow Escape is to successfully navigate a ship through the narrow, fast-moving passages of the warlord's fortress, destroy the defense forces and avoid space debris. The player's ship must also be maneuvered through small holes in a series of walls where fuel cells can be picked up to restore the ship's constantly decreasing fuel supply. If the player pilots their ship successfully, they will be faced with the warlord's own escape ship which must be hit several times to be destroyed, liberating the star system from the warlord's tyranny. Each level becomes more difficult as everything will move faster, fuel will be consumed more quickly, the holes in the walls will become smaller, and more menacing defense forces will appear. Each level of game play consists of two phases: 1. Passages: During the first phase of each level, the player must maneuver their ship through the narrow, moving passages with the joystick while shooting six of the warlord's defense forces with button 4. If any of the six are missed, they will go off-screen and be recycled to give the player another chance, but more fuel will be used. In addition to various defense forces which must be destroyed, there are extra targets that can be shot for additional points. Unlike the regular defense forces, the extra targets are non-threatening in that they will not shoot or crash into the player's ship. During this phase, space debris will also be shooting up through the play field. Space debris cannot be shot and can only be avoided by dodging it by moving from side to side. The walls of the narrow passage are also a danger to the player. If the player's ship crashes into a wall, a life will be lost. There are gaps between the moving walls which the player can maneuver quickly into and out of so as to avoid approaching enemies or space debris, however as game play becomes faster this will present a higher risk to crashing into oncoming walls. 2. Walls: If the passages are successfully navigated and the the required six defense forces are destroyed, the player will enter the second phase. This is a series of walls with holes. In the first level of the game, there are five successive walls, each with one hole through which the player must maneuver their ship. In the second level of play, there will be six successive walls, in the third level, seven walls, etc. Also the size of the holes will become smaller in each new level. The hole will be in a different location on each wall. After passing through the hole in each wall (but prior to entering the hole in the next wall) there will be a fuel cell which must be passed to pick up. If the fuel cells are missed, the game will continue, but the fuel gauge will be continuously depleting. Note: in early levels of the game, all of the fuel cells will not need to be captured. However as the game progresses and fuel is consumed faster, all of the fuel cells will need to be captured in order to make it through the next level. After successfully completing three levels of play, the player will come face-to-face with the warlord's escape ship in open space. The warlord's ship must be shot five times to be destroyed during the first encounter, seven times on the next encounter, nine times the next, etc. The warlord's ship will shoot torpedoes at the player's ship, which can be either avoided or shot at to be destroyed. If the warlord's escape ship is destroyed, the player will enter the next level of play and the game will continue.

The player controls a formula one race car whose objective is to advance through the rankings and either make the best time or accumulate as many points as possible depending on the game selected. In Game 1, the player has unlimited cars and their goal is to finish the course in as little time as possible. In Game 2, the player receives 5 cars and the goal is to accumulate as many points as possible. In both games, collision with either the edge of the track or other cars results in the loss of a life and the player is forced to start from a speed of zero.

Doodle Jump clone

A one or two player shooter game published and developed by John Dondzila in 1996.

Space Wars is an early vector graphics arcade game. It is based on Spacewar!, a PDP-1 program. It was ported to the Vectrex in 1982. Space Wars was the brainchild of Larry Rosenthal, an MIT graduate who was fascinated with the original Spacewar! and developed his own custom hardware and software so that he could play the game. Cinematronics worked with Rosenthal to produce the Space Wars system. Two players controlled different ships. One button rotated the ship left, another rotated the ship right, one engaged thrust, one fired a shell, and one entered hyperspace (which causes the ship to disappear and reappear elsewhere on the playfield at random). The game offered a number of gameplay options, including the presence or absence of a star in the middle of the playfield (which exerted a positive or negative gravitational pull), whether the edges of the playfield "wrapped around" to their opposite sides, and whether shells bounced. Three other fascinating features were unique to this game. First, the game could not be played in "one player" mode; a human opponent was required. Second, the player's ship could take a glancing hit without dying, but would suffer damage; a cloud of loose ship fragments would break off and float away, after which the ship would be visibly damaged on screen and would turn and accelerate more slowly. Third and most memorable was that the duration of play for any contest was solely governed by the amount of money deposited; each quarter bought a minute and a half of play. A dollar bought six minutes, and for a ten dollar roll of quarters two players could play non-stop for an hour.

Spike's Water Balloons. Spike returns in this Vectrex version of popular "Kaboom" and "Mad Bomber" style games of the early eighties !

The first ever 16K Vectrex game, written by John Donzila! Originally planned to be a smaller game included in "More Good Things", John later decided to make it a seperate entity. Spike Hoppin' is a game where you make Spike hop on blocks, and change all their "colors". Spud returns and will try to stop Spike, as well as other enemies and a few friends too. Spike Hoppin' includes digitized speech (Spike talks again!), as well as a bonus hidden game and a few other surprises !

The player controls a ship that can rotate to the left and right and thrust forward, similar to the better known Asteroids, and like that game the player also has a "hail mary" device, hyperspace. In the center of the screen is the sun, which pulls objects into it, in a fashion similar to Spacewar!. The screen wraps at the edges. Waves of enemy spaceships appear in groups of up to eight. There are seven different types of ships, growing smaller to make them harder to hit. Each "phase" of the gameplay completes when each of the seven waves is destroyed. The spaceships are a collision hazard and normally fly around the screen randomly. As the game progresses, they become more likely to attempt to ram the player directly. At higher levels, the ships gain weapons and attempt to shoot the player. The player's ship is armed with two weapons, a cannon and a "nuke". The cannon fires a single shot in the direction your ship is pointed, and the game allows up to four shots on screen at once. The nuke destroys all ships in the area when it is triggered, which occurs with a second button press after being launched from the ship. The player's ship starts the game with three nukes and gains a new one every 10000 points. Whenever an alien ship is destroyed, a "survivor" is left drifting in space. The player can collect the survivors by flying his ship over them. Alternately he can shoot them, or allow them to fall into the sun. The player is awarded with points for successful rescues, and eventually free ships. The game is remembered fondly by many players, and Simon Burns of VoxelArcade called it "freedom under an overlaid blue sky".

The game begins with a large enemy ship dropping mines onto the field as an ominous jingle plays, and moves from the top to the bottom of the screen, where it disappears. The player's ship starts in the middle of the field with 5 lives. Numerous mines then start popping up. The player must destroy all of the mines in order to progress to the next minefield. All of the mines can be destroyed with one shot, or hit with the player's ship, costing the player a life. There are 4 types of mines.

Web Wars release for Vectrex video game system

An adventure for the Vectrex

Wetcat is about a curious little cat that got lost deep in the city's sewage system.

Melody Master is a fantastic cartridge that, when used in conjunction with your Vectrex light pen, introduces you to the exciting world of music. It allows you to compose your own melodies and even has the capability to play flute and piano harmony with rhythm sections of snare and cymbals. You can create your own electronic musical masterpiece and amaze your friends that this interactive cartridge in a quarter century old gaming system allowed you to compose it. There is also a tutorial program for those of us who are not musically inclined. The "Songman" teaches you to recognize notes and identify other concepts of musical notation. It is a true interactive educational and creative experience. In my opinion, the feel of this cartridge rates 9-10, controls 7-10, and overall 8-10. It is a fun software title to sink hours of creative fun into on your Vectrex.

From http://www.packratvg.com/vmania.html This game is a remix of Patriots by John Dondzila. It's improved graphics routines, bug fixes and multi-channel sound effects. There is no original cover for cartridge. The original cover is only for package Vecmania.

Pitcher's Duel was sold both as cart only and cartridge with manual and full color printed GCE Style cardboard box. Approximately, 250-300 are believed to exist, of which somewhere around 200 were sold complete. Those sold complete with box at the 2007 Classic Gaming Expo had a PCB contained in a green transluscent reproduction shell while those sold after were contained in the standard black shell. There was no overlay included however an overlay design is depicted on the box. In addition, the was one Pitcher's Duel Collectors Set auctioned at CGE2K7 which included both the green translucent and black standard versions of Pitcher's Duel as well as exclusive red translucent and blue translucent version of the cart.

Sports game Diving competition

Gravitar was a vector graphic arcade game that took some of the elements of Asteroids (the controls and free flight abilities of the player's['] ship[s]) but made them more restrictive by placing players inside a series of planets. Players had to skim surfaces of the planets and destroy all the bunkers therein, as well as beam up fuel cells to maintain their fuel level(s) and avoiding or destroying saucers that would also appear. The game did not do very well commercially and would only be ported to the Atari 2600 a few years later (although it has reappeared on some modern day compilations since). Gravitrex is a clone of Gravitar, although with many differences, such as the addition of humans dotting the planetary landscapes that have to be rescued, and the Gravitrex Plus cart also includes two bonus games and other features as well. All games are for one player only. Gameplay: The player controls a fighter ship that begins each game in a solar system. There is a sun in the middle and several planets to choose from to enter so the player can start their mission. If the player takes too long with choosing a planet, a pair of space saucers will emerge from the reactor planet and will engage the player in a dogfight if they get close enough (although the player can just elude them by entering a planet). If the player’s ship gets destroyed or the player shoots both saucers then the player will return to the main solar system screen. Once the player enters a planet by thrusting into it, they must destroy every enemy bunker on the surface and dispose of every fuel tank and human. Humans and fuel tanks can be shot (although the player will not receive any points for doing so), but a bonus is given if all humans are rescued on a level (see Scoring and Extras sections), plus fuel tanks are needed to keep up the player’s fuel level (which is indicated by a line right next to the score at the top left of the screen). Humans and fuel tanks can be teleported into the player’s ship by maneuvering their ship close and activating the teleporter/shields function. Once all bunkers have been destroyed and all humans and fuel tanks have been disposed of, a sound effect will signal that the mission is complete, and upon leaving the planet, it will self-destruct and the player will be given a bonus for that planet. The exception to this rule is the lone reactor planet on each level, which has only one target – a reactor – deep inside it. This planet is different than all the others, as the player is given 99 time units to make their way through a brief maze, shoot the reactor, and get out before time runs out or else the player’s ship will be destroyed and the reactor will remain intact. If the player does not destroy this planet last in a level then it clears out the space saucers for the remainder of the level, since this is the planet that they emerge from. Dangers include the player’s ship crashing if it runs out of fuel, plus the ship will be destroyed if shot by a bunker, space saucer or alien air interceptor (which are similar to space saucers but they appear inside a planet), if they crash into a wall, the sun, space saucer or alien air interceptor, or do not leave the reactor planet before their time runs out. If the player runs out of reserve ships then the game will end. The player’s fuel, however, is replenished mostly from a fuel tank and is fully replaced upon destroying a planet, finishing a level, or with each new ship. The player’s teleporter function also doubles as a shield to protect them from enemy fire. Also, if the player defeats all planets in a level, then that level’s sun will go nova, various bonuses are then awarded (see Extras section), and if the player defeats the third level the game will end, giving a congratulations message as well as sharing some trivia about Gravitrex from the game’s programmer John Dondzila on the screen.

You control the movements of the passenger in the lead car as he plummets down the spectacularly steep hills and careens around the gravity-defying curves of the Crazy Coaster. Will you be able to keep his arms raised throughout the ride without sending him flying off into space?