Starflight (Genesis)

Starflight
Developers: Binary Systems, Electronic Arts Publisher: Electronic Arts Platform: Genesis Released in US: October 7, 1991 Released in EU: November 1991 This game has unused text. This game has revisional differences.

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article?

ORBIT ESTABLISHED.

Anti Piracy Police

An unused message from the DOS version, spoken by the anti-piracy police ship, still lives at ROM address 0x1f00b:

PULL OVER!  THIS IS THE INTERSTEL CORPORATE POLICE.  YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.  DROP ALL SHIELDS AND DISARM ALL WEAPONS.  YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF INTERGALACTIC SOFTWARE THEFT LAW.  DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RESIST.

Debug Text

Some text provided by the programmer to test the message display code lives at ROM address 0x70f1a:

THIS STRING TESTS IF THE NEW WRITEMESSAGE FUNCTION WORKS PROPERLY OR NOT.  THIS MESSAGE SHOULD APPEAR CORRECTLY IN A WINDOW WHEN THE START BUTTON IS PRESSED PLANETSIDE. WHEN THE WINDOW IS FULL, THE USER PRESSES THE A BUTTON AND MORE OF THE MESSAGE SHOULD APPEAR.  THIS IS TO BE USED FOR ANYWHERE THAT A MESSAGE COULD RUN LONGER THAN A WINDOW, FOR EXAMPLE IN THE ALIEN COMMUNICATIONS SECTION, WHERE ALIEN MESSAGES COULD BE SEVERAL WINDOWS LONG.  SPECIAL CHARACTERS THAT ARE ALLOWED ARE:  LOWER CASE R STANDS FOR RETURN, SO YOU CAN BREAK A LINE IN THE MIDDLErSMALL C IS c, SMALL T IS t, SMALL I IS i.rPUNCTUATION STANDARD ASCII:  !+=-:?%#.,rANY ILLEGAL VALUE SHOWS UP AS A c.

THE END

To do: Screenshots?

Normally, the game ends after a certain amount of time has passed and your home system's sun solar flares, ravaging the planets. However, if you modify the year in RAM to a certain point after that point (500 years after the fact!!), you will get this strange message in your mail on Arth, simply stating "THE END". It is unknown what this was intended to be used for.

Revision Differences

To do: What else?

ROM Header

September 1991	October 1991
SEGA GENESIS (C)T-50 1991.SEP STARFLIGHT STARFLIGHT GM T-50216 -00	SEGA GENESIS (C)T-50 1991.OCT Starflight Starflight GM T-50216 -01

The ROM header dates the revision one month later than the original release.

Title Screen

September 1991	October 1991

The "ELECTRONIC ARTS" text was shifted rightward to line up with "BINARY SYSTEMS".