Happy Christmas!

Click here to download your FREE Vectrex Vectorzoa Christmas Present!
Can be used with ParaJVE, Mess or better yet a REAL Vectrex with VecFlash or an EPROM. This ROM is free for personal use. Multicart inclusion is exclusive to Madtronix.com

Check out additional game information and downloads at the main vectorzoa.com website

Vec Keyboard Lives!

Originally conceived, designed, prototyped and coded by Dan Siewers
Redesigned for PCB production by Richard Hutchinson

Impressive work, guys!

The last time text was used to any degree was on the Luscher Stress Tester.

Will the keyboard be the dawn of a new era of programming and adventure games or fall the way of the lightpen? You decide! With extra RAM carts a BASIC interpreter has become a real option.

Eurocon 2006 Charity Mayhem

Take a dozen hardcore retro gamers, a one off unlocked Spike's Circus and a unique Gold (coloured) engraved Vectorzoa Spike's Circus tag, the mighty Pepijn as enthusiatic auctioneer (shown) and a very deserving charity to benefit and you get a receipe for genorosity.

With a starting price of £30 and a great crowd, the bidding got pretty intense, when the bidding hit £200 we were all getting pretty scared so a few odd carts, a lightpen and slimcards were thrown in to try to distract us all from the pressure. Undetered the UK's own collector and gamer extraordinaire- Mayhem went on to win the auction with a very impressive and genorous bid of £300! Many thanks to Mat for his terrific contribution which will combine with other auction items and contributuions to go to The Starlight Charity which provides amongst other things games consoles to help grant children's wishes and entertain children in hospital.

If you would like to help Mat please click on the link here and make a donation.

Where are you?

Calling Vectrex owners, please support Joerg's Vectrex initiative on http://www.frappr.com/everythingvectrex

Spike's Circus rolls into Sheffield

A big thankyou to Richard Hutchinson for his super cool engraved Spike's Circus key fobs which just arrived in the mail. The pink one lasted about 4 seconds before being grabbed by Vectorzoa's "GCE repro box designer" Kirsty! Check out www.vectrex.biz for Richard's cool Vectrex and Atari related hardware.

Eurocon 2006

I (Alex) will be attending Eurocon 2006 representing Vectorzoa and am very much looking forward to meeting some more of the Retro Community, living in the South-west leaves me far from the Vectrex action so it will be good to say hello to my more Northern based UK friends, (and the remaining Europeans I did not meet at RGD 2006 in Holland!) My priorities will be social and I do not expect to bring many items to sell, although I will bring a few.

Regarding Joust Evolution there have been statements on other sites and here that it will be released at the show; I would like to revise/clarify this: Joust Evolution will be launched at the show in some form. I would expect one of the following:

1. Joust (Classic) only will be made available in very limited numbers. Probaby a production of less than 16 in total, the majority will be offered to Eurocon attendees as priority at a fixed (and very reasonable) price and the remainder put out to ebay auction following.
2. Failing that (due to baby etc.) Joust Evolution in its current form will be demoed (Vectrex console availability permitting.)

Joust Evolution the full release will follow afterwards, hopefully within late 2006. It is important for me to include original concepts in my games and I do not want to rush the Evolution components of the game. I hope upon release you will all agree it was worth the wait! Joust Evolution will be released in my usual production run of circa #80 Limited Editions.

Vectorzoa gains a new team member!

On Sunday 27th August 2006 at 9:15pm our beautiful baby Eleanor Rose entered the world. This photo was taken within 10 minutes of her birth. Mother and baby are both well and have safely returned home.
[With such tiny hands PCB soldering should be a breeze for her, and another beta tester is always welcome!]

Joust Evolution Screenshots

Having produced a test overlay Vectorzoa can now reveal screen shots from Vectrex Joust Evolution. By visiting the main site vectorzoa.com check out the raster platforms and flickering flames and vector mounts, eggs and remaining details. Remember this game is Joust Evolution, at this point only the Joust Classic features are shown.

Please show your support of Vectorzoa activites by leaving your comments in this blog!

Spike's Circus 2 - In Development!

Following the excellent reception of Spike's Circus (Classic Edition still available) and the clear demand for skill based games that are really fun to play Vectorzoa is proud to announce the title and concept of the sequel:

Spike's Circus 2 : Spud Bounces Back

This game will feature similar concepts, but this time starring Spud (as the anti-hero!) The quintessential element of the game will be Spud riding a Pogo Stick! The pogo stick adds new complexities of control and challenges including bounce synchronisation and leaping over objects! SC2 is currently in design but further details and screenshots will be published soon.

Spike's Circus Completion Competition #2

To give international buyers an opportunity to compete for a free copy of Joust Evolution. Vectorzoa has offered Joust Evolution #04 as a prize in a second competition. All Spike's Circus Limited Edition owners were invited to submit the unlock codes of the final level before 9pm on Friday 18th August 2006. There were two entrants:

• Robert Stickles
• Pepijn Bakker

According to contest rules the winner of JE#04 was to be decided by random selection.

After validating submissions, a suitable random probability visual indicator endorsed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was selected from a convienient mobile personal appareil pouch. The candidates were designated a respective facet, the instrument was then launched along a freefall parabola orthoganol to the natural plane. Following the subsequent collision with the plane and the eventual assertion of a stable equilibrium the victor was found to be the latter of the aformentioned identities.

Or to put it another way..

Pepijn won the coin toss.

Congratulations, you win the forthcoming Joust Evolution LE #04

Spike's Circus Completion Competition #1

The first person in the world to complete Spike's Circus is confirmed to be: Mike Cottrell! Mike (Tyke) wins #03 of the forthcoming Joust Evolution!

22222

Spike's Circus is game number 2 from Vectorzoa stable. (if you're a programmer that is, since programmers always count from 0! (See the Limited Edition Serial numbers for proof.) Logo was game 0, Star Sling was 1. As Vectrex collectors may be aware Star Sling was especially written to fit within the size of ROM that programmers had to use back in 1982. This size used was exactly 4KB or 4096 bytes. Most original GCE games were 4K with a few stretching to the extravagance of 8K. The Vectrex can address a maximum of 32K of on cart memory. Thanks to clever work by John Macallan this can be spilt between extra ROM and RAM. Spikes Circus uses 8K of onboard RAM, (the rotated clubs are pre-rendered to the RAM on boot, the side view of Spike's Unicycle is rendered in real time, and the top down view of the cycle on the tightrope is pre-loaded into ROM). The rest of the RAM is used to quickly access level gradients and heights for convenience. This leaves 24KB of potential ROM space to use for the game. Spike's Circus uses exactly 22,222bytes without any contrivance or artificial padding in the source code. Why 22,222? Well because it's game number 2 of course! :)

Joust Evolution

Vectorzoa is proud to reveal the Mystery game to be Joust Evolution.
JE will feature the classic game with additional mounts and styles of movement radiacally affecting strategy.

A teaser shot is shown here. The ledge is NOT part of the overlay but is raster generated. The Joust mount is of course Vector generated. JE is the first game to effectively combine Rasters and Vectors to any significant degree, benefitting from the strengths of each. The animated flame pits are another great example of this.

Vectrex Mystery Game

It is intended this will launch at Eurocon 2006.
Currently few details have been released although it is known to be based upon an enhanced version of a popular Retro game and to involve both Rasters and Vectors to their best effect.

Vectrex Spike's Circus

Spike's Circus shipped on 9th August 2006

See http://vectorzoa.com/circus/gi_circus.html for details.

Further announcements will appear here..
Spike's Circus will see the launch of my new boxes... Vectrex Clearbox!
These are modern, stylish (and indestructible)

New animated gifs added to site. (25/06/07) Check them out!
Also level one intro screen shown here:
http://vectorzoa.com/circus/i/level1.gif

New packaging and overlay details added too.

Overlays are the highest quality ever produced for a Vectorzoa game! Super vibrant colours and extra thick!

Alternative presentation clearbox posted on ebay featuring reproduction GCE facade.

Vectrex Star Sling

SS LE 25 boxes and overlays production completed.
All ordered SS LE have now shipped!
1 remains for ebay sales.

SS FE now emailed to those who requested it from on the Vectorzoa website:
http://vectorzoa.com/ssling/gi_ssling.html

SS TE ( 11.49 EUR) taking orders on:
http://www.madtronix.com/html/star_sling.html

Vectrex Logo

Logo LE now sold out.
Final copies reserved but still unpaid currently being auctioned on ebay.