Starfighter

Comment by Geepig:

What is left out is the excitement, and the terminology such as ‘cluster chucks’. What did one feel when one rotated to face the target after freshly arriving in a new system, to see a small cross in the middle of the screen… A quick glance to see distance – was it 3000 units or 30000 units away? If the former then one could heave a sigh of relief, but if the latter you knew it was a death star and for the next few moments you were banging at the keyboard requesting a hyperjump, desperately looking for a new system to jump to because otherwise you would shortly be dead.

Comment by Dadosara:

Oh, the many hours spent fighting Cluster Chucks and Rogue Starfighters, and having it all go for naught as you are blown away in seconds by a Death Star. I long to play this game again, can anyone assist in finding a copy?

Comment by Steve:

Was there a way to kill one of those death casters? Anyway, your post brought back old memories. I remember the crash drive and waiting for the cone shift to count down so that you could escape in time when you accidentally warped into an area with a death caster.

Comment by Sparky Starks:

I’m the author of Starfighter. The Atari 800 version of it was called Destiny: The Cruiser. If you can find that version, keep it, Scott only released 50 copies on EPROM, because that was the year that the video arcade industry collapsed.

Re: Killing BTG’s and Deathcasters. Yes, that was possible but only at a terrible financial loss and only with 4 or 5 fields around you. The Deathcaster actually had very poor defense: the trick was getting into your own weapon range without dying. Incidentally, the top level was mostly Deathcasters and BTGs and was not intended to be survivable. We had a couple of people send in the ‘secret word’ (which was “greetings”) but all confessed later that they had hacked the code to get it (smile).

About playing Starfighter today. There are TRS-80 emulators out there and images of the Starfighter program. If you like the Clusterchucks, stick to the Tandy version. I cut them out of the Atari version because the Iran hostage crisis was old news by then, and substituted an armed version of the Scout, the TAC (I think) or Tactical Assault Craft, and one other thing that I forget. The TAC was a larger but slower version of the Starfighter craft.

Nice to see that I’m not entirely forgotten. Incidentally, the LAST game I did (and only on IBM compatible) was Visions of Aftermath: The Boomtown, published by Mindscape and developed as Chivalry Software, Inc. (by this time, publishers wouldn’t believe that a single author could write a good game, so…).

Comment by Chris Keane:

Just found this site. Brought back good memories. I think more than a couple of people sent in the “secret word”, my certificate is numbered 123. I have a scanned jpeg if you would like me to send it to you. And, no, I didn’t ‘hack’ it, it was endless nights and remembering to save, save, save.
Thanks Sparky for a great game.

Comment by Rob:

This was one of the best games for the TRS-80 in my opinion. Thanks so much Sparky for making it, well done sir! Considering the capabilities of the TRS-80 at the time, the features and detail that were part of this game were incredible. One of the things that was quite cool was requesting a tow when you were pretty well spent. Overall 100% great!

I did managed to get within weapons range of a Death caster ONCE. I remember blasting away at it and hitting it several times but ultimately the result was the same DEATH!

Comment by Angrysquirrel:

I found this site because I remembered sc 78503 starfighter.

I was one of the people who got the secret word. I got it when the game loaded incorrectly (thanks to tape drive technology) and crashed. It then provided me with the secret word.

I thought the game was great for its’ time.

Other thing. When I got this game I was in grade school. I heard about it in a magazine. The tag line was “the penultimate space game.” So I looked up the word in the dictionary to find out what that meant. Then in school a teacher asked if anyone knew what penultimate meant. Nobody raised their hand except me. When I told her the correct answer she was stunned.

So I just want to say thanks for not only a great game but to get me so interested that I looked a word up I didn’t know. ;)

Comment by Djfinny:

Question for Mr Sparks. I remember a game called “Ball Turret Gunship” for the TRS-80 that came out after Starfighter. Was that game a take-off from Starfighter as the BTG were in fact Ball Turret Gunships? Frankly destroying a ball turret gunship was a pretty lucky process. I remember them having incredible range and firing very fast but rarely hitting your ship. If you could get into weapon range you could really pound on them and hopefully destory them before they hit you with a few lucky shots. Those Death Casters on the other hand… never destroyed one. By the time I’d get into weapon range, I’d hit them a few times but then because I was flying so fast I’d fly past them and then lose my 3 or 4 shield and ka-boom. Great game Mr Sparks – one of the best for the TRS-80 way back when.

Comment by Will Price:

A friend and I still say to each other “Starfighter, Good Hunting. D to Drive, D to Drive” :)

Comment by Sparky Starks:

For Djfinny:
Ball Turret Gunner was mine, published by Instant Software. I also did a party game named Minotaur that they published. BTG was a 4k game done mostly in BASIC with just enough ML to do the animation. I revisited the BTG in Starfighter as part of the historical background of the game reality. In game, it was a pre-Landbase craft, and so had no charge field, making it an easy target. If you remember BTG, in it you were a gunner with the goal of getting what became an Exxonerator (Gnat) Starwars-like target centered on screen and shooting it. The Gnats hopped around on the screen, and ‘pot shots’ were the only way to hit them. This is why the BTG in Starfighter fired frequently but not very accurately.

Comment by panzerpet:

thanks for bringing me to my once favoured game …
if i only had known , how far this computer stuff will grow
today x3 has better graphics but not the charme of the old games and days

Comment by Brian Dibbins:

Thank you Sparky Starks for a billiant game.

I simply don’t understand why there isn’t a current version available for PC’s and consoles today. The concept of shaping your hyperdrive for various weapons, having limited access to the various landbases, the difficulty of distinguishing friend from foe at times, the adrenalin rush of seeing a deathcaster in the distance…

To use the curent vernacular; the game is epic win and made of awesome.

Brian

Comment by patcallow:

Mr. Starks, Thank you for creating such a great game. It’s among my favorite memories as a kid playing it.

Comment by Maxwell Edison:

I have spent days and nights thinking about re-coding Starfighter for the PC.
I once spent 17 consecutive hours playing Starfighter.
to Drive
(Holds down W T S and then hits the D key, only releasing the keys after warp-in and target is present)
Rotate to foe (?) and close.
Oh GAWD! It’s an enormous plus sign!
to drive.
(Preceded by )

Comment by Mike Russo:

Best game ever! I was ten years old when it came out, and played it all the time. On the weekends, dad would let me stay up all night playing, then in the morning would stick his head in the door and ask… “Did you kill a Death Caster?”…and never did. I got within range a few times, but those things inflicted massave damage… I never had a chance. I’d actually get scared when I’d encounter one! …eh, I was only ten!

I don’t think I ever got my rank any higher than Inspector, but sure had tons of fun playing the game. We accidentally discovered the “greetings” password through a cassette load malfunction, and received a “congratulations” certificate as well. I continued playing up until pops repaced our TRASH-80 with a Commodore 64. I never found a game I had more fun playing.

Comment by Gary Friedman:

I agree with Brian, I also don’t understand why there isn’t a current version for PCs — we need one now. I would spend big $ for a copy. Thanks Sparky!

Comment by Geepig:

Yes, thanks Sparky, I still miss that game!

Comment by Mark Cookman:

Sparky Starks lost his battle with lung cancer this afternoon. A bright light has been extinguished and the world grows darker for its loss. R.I.P. Larry Allen Starks 1951 – 2011.

Comment by Mark McDougall:

Very sad news indeed! :(

Comment by Brian Dibbins:

I was reading a thread on one of the fanfiction Yahoo groups I’ve joined, and started reading an OT thread about ‘the good old days’, which focussed a lot on old computers.

As a result, I started thinking about my old TRS-80 again, which led me to think about the old games, and of course, to my favourite game; Starfighter. This of course led me to this page and I couldn’t help but smile as I read a comment I posted the last time I ran the same search. I didn’t even recall posting it until I read it! :)

Anyway, having read the newer comments, including the one regarding the passing of Sparky, I couldn’t help but add my own RIP wish for Sparky. Thank you for the enjoyment your game gave me, and may all the Starfighters you encounter be friendlies, and not Marauders.

Brian