Blastar

Blastar by E.R. Musk

Originally written in BASIC for Spectravideo SVI-318/328, 1983

Ported to QB64 by DmK, 2024

This is the best version of the original game that I know of.

Bugs are fixed, speed is set to similar to what it feels like in the openMSX emulator (I do not have a real Spectravideo machine), and aside from a few minor touches here and there, the game looks the same as the original.

The game can be played using the keyboard. Both W/A/S/D and arrow keys are supported, but be aware of key ghosting on a regular "office" keyboard. However, to see the game's full potential, I recommend using a joystick (game controller), especially if you want to play at higher speeds, which I will explain in the instructions.

I first saw this game available to play online at https://blastar-1984.appspot.com and was impressed by 12-year-old Elon being able to write it. I wanted to see the source code to understand how he did it, and what was the winning strategy.

Thankfully, a scan of the original 1984 magazine page (p.69), where the source code of this game was published is available, and someone was kind enough to re-type it as text.

Running the original source code in the emulator convinced me that the online port did not do the game justice. It ran even slower than with the emulator and gone were the original fonts and sounds of Spectravideo’s AY-3-8910 sound chip. But the bugs were still there.

I did a complete re-write, but careful to keep the original look. I also recorded the original game sounds as .wav files, so the new game can play them. You will get 32-bit Windows executables of the game in 640x480, 960x720 and 1280x960 resolutions. I will also include the new QB64 source code, in case you want to tweak some aspects of the game, like game speed, run the game natively on Mac/Linux, or just see what the alien logic is (and how to beat it!).

If you are not familiar with QB64 (https://qb64.com), it is quite easy to start with. It is a portable installation, and loading the source code in the editor and pressing [F5] to run, is all that is needed to start with it. The BASIC code can later be translated to JavaScript with QBjs (https://qbjs.org) and played in the browser. This is not always straightforward, but at least possible.

In summary, you will get:

1. New source code of the game, re-written in QB64

2. Executables of the game in multiple resolutions

3. Elon's source code of the game, and to run it:

4. Instructions on how to set up the emulator