Difference between revisions of "Star Avenger 4"

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After the first two games, ''Star Avenger'' turns into a series of sketches. ''[[Star Avenger III]]'' gets caught up in an epic ambition, and then rests after establishing its basic ideas. ''Star Avenger 4'' sticks to one idea, and uses only a single level to explore it, but it makes more of that idea than any previous ''Star Avenger'' game and indeed sets up a model for future space shooters to follow.  
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After the first two games, ''Star Avenger'' turns into a series of sketches. ''[[Star Avenger III]]'' gets caught up in an epic ambition, establishes its basic ideas, then rests. ''Star Avenger 4'' sticks to one idea, and uses just a single level to explore it, but it makes more of that idea than any previous ''Star Avenger'' game and indeed sets up a model for future space shooters to follow.  
  
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For its mechanics and narrative, ''Star Avenger 4'' recalls both ''Space Invaders'' and ''Choplifter''. From the former we get a vessel skirting horizontally across the playfield, shooting upward at encroaching alien forces. From the latter, we get a rescue operation. Make your way across the lunar desolation, pick up a stranded human, and deliver your charge back home again.  
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In its design and narrative, ''Star Avenger 4'' recalls both ''Space Invaders'' and ''Choplifter''. From the former we get a vessel skirting horizontally across the playfield, shooting upward at encroaching alien forces. From the latter, we get a rescue operation. Make your way across the lunar desolation, pick up a stranded human, and deliver your charge back home again.  
  
 
Mechanically this is simple enough; the people ahead of you act as keys, unlocking doors behind you. Go back and forth; fetch, unlock, fetch, unlock, until you're done. A reductionary reading does the game no favors, though, and doesn't begin to get at what's happening here.  
 
Mechanically this is simple enough; the people ahead of you act as keys, unlocking doors behind you. Go back and forth; fetch, unlock, fetch, unlock, until you're done. A reductionary reading does the game no favors, though, and doesn't begin to get at what's happening here.  
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[[File:Star4Sprite1.gif|center]]
 
[[File:Star4Sprite1.gif|center]]
  
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Presentation -- character shadows. Moonscape with layered perspective, demonstrating the bleak loneliness of the player's journey. Besides the player's character there's nothing out there, no one to turn to. Makes the player's mission, to rescue a small group of people and cart them across that landscape to safety, feel significant. Contextualizing the firepower with the character sprite and its animation.
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The presentation is the first thing to strike you. This moonscape is bleak, and lonely. The solitude of your little missile buggy is all the more stark for Caudel's shadow technique (also employed in ''[[Star Wars: Return of the Jedi]]''; it's unclear which use came first). The tiny, open vehicle, driven by an even smaller [[Yurik Nestoly|Nestoly]]-sized figure, occupies the top block of a two-block-high character; the bottom block is a flat gray shadow, cast across the foreground. The plane across which the character travels landscape cuts through a deep and layered perspective, rolling from the foreground back to the horizon.  
  
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It's unclear whether this came before or after ''[[Star Wars: Return of the Jedi]]'', but we have the same shadow concept in play here.
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demonstrating the bleak loneliness of the player's journey. Besides the player's character there's nothing out there, no one to turn to. Makes the player's mission, to rescue a small group of people and cart them across that landscape to safety, feel significant. Contextualizing the firepower with the character sprite and its animation.
  
 
The mechanics work jointly with the presentation.  
 
The mechanics work jointly with the presentation.  

Revision as of 14:01, 18 February 2016

Featured.png
Star Avenger IV
StarAvenger4.gif

Release type: Incomplete
Release date: 1996
Levels: ?
Author: Adam Tyner, Alan Caudel
Website: DummyDuck.com
Related games: Star Avenger, Star Avenger II, Star Avenger III

FULL ENTRY COMING SOON!


After the first two games, Star Avenger turns into a series of sketches. Star Avenger III gets caught up in an epic ambition, establishes its basic ideas, then rests. Star Avenger 4 sticks to one idea, and uses just a single level to explore it, but it makes more of that idea than any previous Star Avenger game and indeed sets up a model for future space shooters to follow.

In its design and narrative, Star Avenger 4 recalls both Space Invaders and Choplifter. From the former we get a vessel skirting horizontally across the playfield, shooting upward at encroaching alien forces. From the latter, we get a rescue operation. Make your way across the lunar desolation, pick up a stranded human, and deliver your charge back home again.

Mechanically this is simple enough; the people ahead of you act as keys, unlocking doors behind you. Go back and forth; fetch, unlock, fetch, unlock, until you're done. A reductionary reading does the game no favors, though, and doesn't begin to get at what's happening here.

Screenshot from Star Avenger 4
Star4Sprite1.gif

The presentation is the first thing to strike you. This moonscape is bleak, and lonely. The solitude of your little missile buggy is all the more stark for Caudel's shadow technique (also employed in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi; it's unclear which use came first). The tiny, open vehicle, driven by an even smaller Nestoly-sized figure, occupies the top block of a two-block-high character; the bottom block is a flat gray shadow, cast across the foreground. The plane across which the character travels landscape cuts through a deep and layered perspective, rolling from the foreground back to the horizon.

demonstrating the bleak loneliness of the player's journey. Besides the player's character there's nothing out there, no one to turn to. Makes the player's mission, to rescue a small group of people and cart them across that landscape to safety, feel significant. Contextualizing the firepower with the character sprite and its animation.

The mechanics work jointly with the presentation.

It's a simple mechanism, but adding a delivery element to what would otherwise be a very fundamental shooter changes the narrative flow in a significant and meaningful way -- and in a way that may actually trump Choplifter or Defender in expressive value.

What Star Avenger 4 presents is a portrait of suspense.

Rescue stranded people and bring them home. More than just a shooter.

Tension. suspense.

Mechanically it's just a lock-and-key situation, but thematically, experientially it feels fresh and nuanced. Lends weight, purpose, consequence to the player's action. Shooting for a reason. Playing for a reason. It's functional, in order to protect the player long enough to ferry precious cargo.

This seems to follow up on the third level in Star Avenger III.

Star4Sprite2.gif

Story

N/A

Instructions

Destroy or avoid the alien invaders!

Scout the lunar surface; try to rescue the research scientists, and return them to the lunar base.

  • Right/Left arrows: drive in those directions
  • Enter: Fire missile upward

Credits

By Alan Caudel and Adam Tyner.

Availability

This game is not known to have been distributed in any form, prior to its addition to the Archive.

Archive History

After an earlier wave of rediscoveries, on July 13 2011 Alan Caudel provided another archive of previously missing Game-Maker material, including the following:

Links

Downloads

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