Weird Science - Tales from the
Vectrex Academy Lab
Vectrex
Game Project Title
Project
Status
- Physical cartridge release by Sean Kelly,
including box, overlay & manual
- Now available here.
Synopsis
- Bottom-of-the-screen skill shooter
- A much advanced and improved version of a certain
older project:
- This is "The Count"
as I had always wanted it to be
How To
Play
- "Greetings visitor, and
welcome to my castle. Come in and
enter at your own risk! I am Count
Vecula. And I love to count. 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Easy, isn’t it?
It’s as simple as that. Let us play
a little game. We will play for a
price. Nothing much, just your soul.
All you have to do, is count. Make
no mistakes, and you will live.
Miscount, and your days are
numbered. If you can count all the
rooms in my castle, then I will let
you go. There are numerous rooms in
my castle, and they are not all
accounted for. You might encounter
strange things on your way, and you
must count them all. Don't be
afraid. I am your counterpart, and I
will always be close. I only want
your best. I have played this game
countless times before, and I have
never lost count. Now, get ready,
and take a bow. After all, I am the
Count, and you can always count on
me…"
- Objective: visit all
rooms of the castle.
- Count (shoot and
eliminate) all objects of each room
from 1 to 9 before the clock strikes
midnight.
- Always shoot the lowest
number which is active and visible
next.
- Hitting the wrong
number results in various
penalties...
- Button 1: pause game
- Button 2: reload the
bow immediately (auto-reload takes
longer)
- Button 3: move with
double speed
- Button 4:
hold-and-release to draw bow and
shoot arrow
- Joystick left-right:
move bow sideways
- Joystick up-down:
accurately draw bow and use button 4
to release (alternative to using
button 4 only)
- Player selection allows
for a single-player mode, or for a
two-players-taking-alternating-terms
mode.
- Game selection
determines the initial level of
difficulty and the number of bows
given.
Tactical
Advice (also see game manual)
- Up to four arrows can be shot simultaneously.
- Arrows can be shot with different speeds, depending
on how much the bow is drawn.
- The fastest arrow is not always the best choice.
- There are levels in which accurate timing and slow
arrows are essential.
- Make use of buttons 2 and 3.
- Also use the joystick-up-down method (see above) for
drawing the bow.
- The
castle has a certain layout, and there
are various ways to traverse its
rooms.
- Some
ways might be less or more difficult
than others.
Author
Screenshots
   
   
Previews
   
- These are early versions of the box art and the
overlay, designed and created by Sean and Stephen,
giving a hint at what the final release will look
like.
Personal
Note
- This project
originally started under the name of "The
Count" as an educational example for
the students of my Vectrex Academy class
back in 2017. It somehow grew out of hand
and evolved into a full Vectrex game.
- But then at
some point, for various reasons, I grew
tired of it and simply could not bring
myself to finishing the last bits of the
project (which was basically "just" the
definition of the levels and their
sequence). So I buried the whole thing in
the crypt, locked the basement door, and did
not think of it for a long time.
- After years of
silence, there was suddenly noise coming
from the basements again. The creature
seemed to have woken up. So I finally
readied myself for a last confrontation and
went down and opened up the crypt. The
coffin was wide open, and the creature was
alive.
- I set out to "just" complete the final definition of
the levels and their sequence, and to leave everything
else as it was. But while at it, I accidently started
to also polish and change some minor stuff. And
suddenly the fun and joy of programming and working on
a Vectrex project was there again. I changed some
major stuff as well, threw out some ballast, and added
several new features which had meanwhile come to my
mind. By now, a lot has changed. To quickly summarize,
I think I have now made "The Count" the game as I had
always envisioned it to be. The result turned out to
be quite different to the original version. I believe
the new version is much more advanced and has improved
in many ways, so I also started thinking about a new
title.
- And at last
the creature spoke to me and told me its
true name: Beware the rise of "Count
Vecula"!
Trivia
- The game is written entirely in C. The code uses the
original Vectrex BIOS routines only to interface with
the hardware and thus should run fine on any console
and emulator.
Downloads
- Overlay: count_vecula.png
- Game manual count_vecula.pdf
- These are prototypes. The overlay
& manual coming along with the physical
cartridge release will look differently.
- Downloads are free and for non-commercial use
only. Use at your own
risk.
- Please respect the
copyright and credit the author and
the origin of this game.
Latest modification on 12/24/2023,
11:30
- Physical cartridge
release done by Sean Kelly now available
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