Trivia
Arcade version
The original coin-op
Star Wars game was built using
Ed Rotberg's incomplete spaceflight fortress assault game entitled
Warp Speed. Add the joystick from his
Military Battlezone and some licensed properties, and voila --
Star Wars!
Commodore 64 versions
There were two licensed conversions of
Star Wars: The Arcade Game for the Commodore 64. The first was a cartridge by
Parker Brothers. This version used simple sprites for the TIE fighters and clusters of dots to represent the fireballs. Several years later,
Domark put out a much more faithful conversion which used vector graphics for all the game elements. Unfortunately while it was quite accurate, it suffered from poor frame rates which often made it difficult to play.
Packaging
My hazy memory recalls: The front of the box contained an embedded LED that blinked slowly, like once every 3 seconds. I believe the LED was part of R2D2's head poking out of the top of the X-Wing.
References to the game
In the 1984 Christmas horror film
Gremlins some of the Gremlin's can be seen briefly playing the original Arcade cabinet version of
Star Wars.
Rogue Squadron III
In the Gamecube title
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III - Rebel Strike, the full version of
Star Wars: The Arcade Game was an unlockable bonus feature.
Boss-keys
Resourceful programmer tricks #2: The function keys serve as multiple different
functional boss-keys, information about the programmer, and other neat little functions -- way above and beyond a typical boss-key. Poke around the keyboard while the game is running and see what you find!
Information also contributed by
Guy Chapman,
Pseudo_Intellectual,
Rekrul and
vedder
