Interesting idea. This would be a good console to emulate on iOS, because of the general goodwill the Vectrex designers had towards emulation (almost everything for the system is free to use). Some of the roms would probably have to be hacked to remove trademarked titles (Pole Position, Scramble) but some already have alternate versions (Star Trek, Clean Sweep). Almost the entire library could be included in some form with the app, circumventing the lack of side-loading that cripples most non-jailbroken emulators. Trivia: Vectrex's designers were interested in making a handheld version themselves in the late 80s but ceased when it became apparent that the Gameboy would be so dominant.
It would be awesome to have a handheld vectrex. Scramble was one of my faves. They could do it similar to Capcom Arcade, but obviously better and include trivia, pics etc.
Love the Vectrex, I picked one up a couple years ago (great condition) for probably ~100$ and a multicart for a little bit more. Any serious oldschool fan should look into picking one up, they are not prohibitively expensive and are a very unique piece of gaming history for real! I am not sure how I feel about seeing it emulated on touchscreen, while the visuals would be rad it might not "feel" right - but I'd sure be down to see some Vectrex-style inspired games (designed for touch interface) running on the device. Also, you've inspired me __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com - help us on reddit Puzzling has Evolved - Get 180 for FREE until 2011! - Contest FreeAppTracker.com Win ANY app you want, daily!
They're pretty expensive by console collector standards, but they're worth it just for the fact that it was unique among home consoles -- never anything like it before or after. When I was still collecting I scored a complete boxed Vectrex unit with 12 boxed games and most of the overlays in great condition for about $180 at an auction. (A real sit-down-and-bid auction held at a second-hand store) Loved that thing, though I was never fussy about the chunky controllers. I'd love to see an emulator for it on iOS though.
You can simulate vector flicker pretty easily, though it might irritate some people, so it should probably be an option. The iPhone -- even older generations -- should have ample power to do a pretty convincing X/Y monitor simulation, since vector graphic simulation itself isn't very demanding, so there should be plenty of cycles left over for flicker effects.
yeah I'm sure they could simulate that somehow. That's actually what I miss from emus of old arcade games like asteroids is the motion blur from the beam.
Some emus have motion blur, scanlines and even CRT curvature on the corners for that more authentic retro experience. Though you wouldn't really worry about scanlines on a Vectrex emulator, just the vector flicker should make it a perfectly authentic experience (with overlays, of course). 4 buttons, on the other hand, might be a bit much to cram in on the screen at once though, so you'd have to rearrange them in a 2x2 pattern, or just eliminate buttons on a per-game basis, since there were hardly any games that used all 4. Oh, and any emulator would have to include the available homebrews, too.
I've been daydreaming about Vectrex on iPhone/iPad, too. There's no legal reasons holding it back, all it needs is someone to code it. I'd whip this up in a moment if only I had any skills.
It's funny you should mention that... My own experiments have shown that GL based graphics can do vector flicker surprisingly well. The bigger issue I've struggled with is how to get the analog "look" right. Getting the "warm" feel of an analog signal is slightly more challenging than the phosphor decay. X/Y displays like the Quadrascan and Vectrex don't really have "pixels" per-se. Which means that aliasing is a no-no. (Something very prominent when drawing the thin lines of a vector display.) I experimented with blurring, but that had a negative effect on the phosphor simulation. (Can you say "extreme smearing"?) The solution I landed on is to render sharp lines to a decaying backbuffer, then post-processes the image to give it an analog look. Throw a bit of sinusoidal disturbance into the post processing, and it should look just like the real thing! BTW, I found the flicker to be surprisingly helpful in one respect. Vector displays were REALLY bright. So bright that it's near impossible to replicate on modern displays. The flicker has the effect of making it look brighter than it actually is. Which gives a better impression of the virtual display.
Damn never knew about this! Thanks for pointing it out. This coup be my dream app! I buy lots of vector games I find but this one could be the best
Oh, wow! Thanks, JindoFox, for posting about that! How incredible. I never personally had one as a kid, but a friend did. And of all the early systems, I always thought, despite it's utilitarian quirkiness, that this was the 'coolest' technology. I really hope that 'soon' actually means soon, and that this doesn't fall off the cliff into the abyss of the app development void. Having this on idevices would be just too good to be true.
Spotted this and thought I'd jump in and let you know that - yes - soon does definitely mean soon... just not 'next week' soon We making it an amazing polished experience, and we're working flat out, but there's a chunk to do before it's ready... News and videos etc will be pinged out via @vectrexregen (http://twitter.com/vectrexregen) Old screen cap from 2 months ago is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s78tU9Ot_z0 Looks unrecognisably different and much, much better now...
Emailed the dev who got back to me.... "I can confirm that Scramble is indeed going to be included in the lineup! We're targeting a release later this year. We're putting huge amounts of effort into it because we want it to be a fantastic experience and do real justice to Vectrex, so I'm not able to put a firm release date yet... but it's already looking awesome " Shame its not 'soon' but either way i'm happy as hell knowing this app will be out later this year.
