Space Fury

Space Fury was one of the many popular vector games developed in the early 1980s in the same model as the famous Asteroids game released by Atari in 1979. Space Fury was developed by Sega for the Sega G80 Arcade system, and was also released in cartridge form for the ColecoVision gaming system.

Released: 1981
Platforms: Arcade ColecoVision
Genres: Arcade Shoot 'em up Shooter
Developers: SEGA
Publishers: gremlin
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Science fiction
Country: Japan

About

Space Fury is a multidirectional shooter arcade game developed by Gremlin. Sega/Gremlin released the game in North America in June 1981, and then Sega released it in Japan the following month. It is the first game with color vector graphics, and was Sega's second game to use speech synthesis. Coleco published a ColecoVision version with raster graphics in 1983.

›Story

The game's basic storyline is a battle against an alien force. Between rounds, the alien commander taunts the player through synthesized speech. There is no conclusion to the game, although score is not kept after round 4. The game was unique for a vector-style game due to the ability to choose upgrades at the beginning of each round.

Each upgrade allowed the player different abilities. Only one upgrade could be used per round-the upgrades ensured that each round played a little different from the last.

Keywords

shoot 'em up
spaceship
vector graphics
voice acting
launch titles
speech synthesis

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player controls a spaceship battling alien spacecraft. It is controlled by four buttons: rotate left, rotate right, thrust, and fire. The player could collect different upgrades for the first three levels. One upgrade allows the player to shoot in a three-way pattern, the second allows the player to fire forward and backwards simultaneously, and the third concentrates firepower in the front.

At the conclusion of the following round, the player picks another shell, although multiple ones cannot be used together. Between rounds and during the attract mode, the Alien Commander taunts the player through the use of synthesized speech. The game continues indefinitely but stops calculating the score after the completion of level four.

Development

Space Fury was the first released vector graphics game to use a color monitor, developed by Electrohome. This X-Y monitor became a standard piece of kit in the G-80 graphics system developed at Sega/Gremlin as an interchangeable arcade system which could feature either a vector or raster game in the arcade cabinet.

The game was developed and programmed by Sega/Gremlin game designer Murphy Bivens and shares a resemblance to Atari's Asteroids. Bivens notably reduced the amount of inertia the ship experienced while moving in any direction while keeping features such as the screen wrap-around. To make the gameplay more interesting, he also added the option for players to choose a variable weapon between stages. This marks the first instance of a shoot 'em up game providing players with the option to upgrade their ship's firepower.

Reception

Raymond Dimetrosky of Video Games Player gave the ColecoVision version a generally positive review. He called the original arcade game "one of the best games to follow in the wake of Asteroids" while praising the accuracy of the conversion. He criticized the lack of the arcade game's speech synthesis, but praised the replacement music. He also compared the game unfavorably with another ColecoVision arcade port released about the same time, Nintendo's Donkey Kong Jr.

Legacy

The alien commander who appears in the game and on the marquee also makes an appearance in the video game Zektor, also designed by Murphy Bivens and released by Sega/Gremlin.

The game is included as an unlockable game in the PSP version of Sega Genesis Collection.