Astro Blaster

Astro Blaster
Developer: Gremlin Publishers: Gremlin, Sega Platform: Arcade (Sega G80 Raster) Released internationally: March 1981 This game has unused areas. This game has unused graphics. This game has revisional differences.

Astro Blaster breaks away from other space shooters of the time with speech synthesis, super-secret bonuses, and a surprisingly diverse collection of enemies.

Unused Graphics

This is an alternate copyright graphic that gives the copyright to Sega and Gremlin. The final copyright isn't stored as a graphic, but as a string.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Areas

There's a Sector 8 featured in the game's attract mode, but the game loops after the player beats Sector 7. By changing the RAM address C97C to 08, this demo-only level can be played!

...it's not that exciting though; the level is identical to the version of Sector 5 found in the first revision of the game.

The only special part of this level is that you can get an otherwise unused secret bonus. Shooting all of the enemies in a wave in the correct order triggers Bonus 20, worth 4000 points, the most points of any bonus in the game.

(Source: Don Hodges)

Miscellaneous

The Secret Bonus numbers coded in the game are 01, 03, 04, 09, 12-20, 22, and 25. Bonuses 02, 05-08, 10, 11, 21, 23, and 24 aren't referenced in the code at all.

So, to the person who's spent 30 years trying to find them and somehow hasn't realized that they don't exist yet: It's time to give up.

(Source: Don Hodges)

Revisional Differences

Attract Mode

Revision 1	Revision 2	Revision 3

• The high score screen is the best way to tell what revision the game is.
  • In Revision 1, there are 3 High Score names, and they're displayed on the game's demo.
  • In Revision 2, there are 3 High Score names, and they're displayed after the game's instructions.
  • In Revision 3, the number of High Score names was raised to 10 and the default names were removed.

Sector Changes

The game's difficulty was rebalanced between revisions, moving some enemy swarms to later on in the sector, and moving other swarms to entirely different sectors.

• Revision 1 is the most difficult, stocking a lot of enemies at the start so the player doesn't get too far into the game.
• Revision 2 is mostly the same, though the first two sectors are a bit easier.
• Revision 3 shifts the difficulty away from the start of the game, and in the process makes the middle of the game tougher to get through.

	Rev. 1	Rev. 2	Rev. 3		Rev. 1	Rev. 2	Rev. 3		Rev. 1	Rev. 2	Rev. 3		Rev. 1	Rev. 2	Rev. 3		Rev. 1	Rev. 2	Rev. 3		All Revisions		All Revisions
Sector 1					Sector 2				Sector 3				Sector 4				Sector 5				Sector 6		Sector 7
Enemy 1
Enemy 2
Enemy 3
Enemy 4
Enemy 5
Enemy 6
Enemy 7
Enemy 8
Enemy 9
Enemy 10
Enemy 11

(Source: Original TCRF research)