Hey, stranger. Pssst. Over here, I want to tell you a secret. You've seen the film Bloodsport, right? Where a group of international warriors battle it out in a secret underground kumite tournament to discover the best? Well, did you know the Vectrex community has its own secret underground annual kumite? Apart from just about everything, it's literally exactly like Bloodsport. Honest!
Between 1st and 8th November, the Vector War XV took place, with this past Sunday the final scores and rankings being collated.
Your author represented Time Extension, ranking #7 out of 30 contestants. My first encounter with the tournament was VWXIII, ranking 13th out of 43 contestants, followed by VWXIV, ranking 7th again. The tournament is open to anyone and everyone as long as you play on real hardware, entry is free, and there are some valuable prizes available for the top 3 rankings.
These include limited edition physical copies of games - this year one of the prizes was the new homebrew game Major Tom, in a custom aluminium cartridge casing. There's also a prize exclusively for younger entrants, since several of the adult contestants introduced their children to the Vectrex; a hand-carved "wooden spoon" prize for the second-to-last adult placement; and a raffled game prize which can be won by one of those who qualify, apart from the top 3.
Even though the Vectrex is over 40 years old, more than half of the games played are new releases. This is because the system has, quite literally, hundreds of homebrew titles, with fifteen or more released each year.
In fact, one of the contestants, Doctor Peer Johannsen, runs the Vectrex Academy class at Pforzheim University. The idea is that students learn more easily when actually creating something, and each year produces multiple complete games. Vectrex Academy 2025 produced 15 finished titles, of which 8 were selected for the Vector War. It's no exaggeration to say that some of these student games actually exceed the quality and complexity of the original retail games from 1982.
There was the multi-level platformer Croc & Doc, featuring environmental puzzles, two characters with unique abilities, and situational music which modified itself based on your location in a map. There was also the versus fighter Into the Fray, and Hero's Quest which bears more than a little resemblance to Zelda.
Each year that I've participated has brought multiple top-tier quality homebrew games, such as Cavern Rescue, Wet Cat, Marine Fox, and Vectrexagon. Last year was a little different, bringing back some much older homebrew. The two retail games this year were the aforementioned Major Tom and Unicorn Galaxy, the latter of which is a shooter where the bosses were based on drawings by the programmer's young daughter.
But these are just a handful of homebrew titles showcased in previous Vector Wars, and just a fraction of what's been released by Vectrex Academy, or indeed the wider homebrew community. In fact, one of the frustrating aspects of the Vectrex community is that it's blessed by so many new releases, both free downloads for flashcarts and retail boxed cartridges, that it's rather difficult to keep track of them all, and there's not really a centralised database.
Thus, even if you're not feeling competitive, it's worth checking out Vector War just for the free ZIP file containing that year's curated selection of games with manuals. The only titles omitted are retail-only games - for example, last year A Crush of Lucifer was part of the roster, the last known legacy Vectrex game to be developed but not released at the time. Of the chosen 13 or 14 games for the tournament, only one or two are retail only, so you don't have to spend money - all you need is a flashcart such as VectMulti.
The annual event is a joy to participate in, with a real sense of camaraderie from everyone, sharing an enthusiasm for this unique, rare, and now very expensive piece of retro hardware. Tips and strategies are exchanged, and it's always fun to see what Peer's class comes up with each year. Significantly, for the few legacy games which are played, it offers an opportunity to really learn their nuances. Because, be honest, if you're just playing to beat your own score, there's little incentive to learn an old game from 1982.
But when you're competing in a tournie, with prizes on offer, you're going to take a moment to understand the underlying workings, and it's at this moment that these old classics shine. This was the environment they were made for - competitive scoring! Along the way we've discovered some really weird anomalies in some of these old games. Starhawk, for example, punishes fast players, so to rack up the highest score, you need to play conservatively.
The tournament is also a testament to human skill. One of the new games this year, Dodge Challenge, was initially deemed too hard, and it was speculated few would score above 2000. Scores of 4000 were met with absolute shock, and then your author scored over 8000 in a game! Alas, my placement at #1 was short-lived, since two other competitors came in with scores of over 16'000 and 10'000, respectively.
However, literally minutes before the contest closed on Saturday, I came back with a score of over 12'000, securing my 2nd place on that particular game. There's always more than 12 games in the tournament, and you only need to qualify on 6 of them to be ranked overall. So if there's any games you don't like you can avoid them. Also, when Dr Peer scored over 2 million on Minestorm, it's obvious you're not going to usurp his position.
With the huge success of the Vectrex Mini it's worth discussing the tournament, because there will hopefully be an influx of new Vectrex enthusiasts. We asked Helmut (aka: hcmffm), the organiser of Vector War, his thoughts on the new mini system and how it might be integrated into the tournament:
"The Kickstarter project began on Monday, and in no time at all the initial goals were achieved. That will make for a lot of Vectrex Mini owners. I can't say yet whether Vector War will be playable on the new Vectrex Mini. That depends primarily on whether the games play 100% the same or not. A separate category would also be conceivable. The Vectrex Mini is planned for December 2026 - the first Vector War where it could be played would then be in 2027. So I still have some time to think about it."
For many of those who participate, it's one of the highlights of their year. Though there's also some surprise at the small number of entrants, given the large number of proud Vectrex owners online. Is it a lack of awareness? One suggestion is that those who own a Vectrex do so just for collector prestige, not actually to play it, which seems a bit of a shame. With a new wave of enthusiasts due soon, we also asked Helmut about the challenges of manually collating the scores multiple times a day, and how he'll cope if more join us:
"Keeping the high-score list up-to-date and writing up personal comments is indeed quite time consuming. It's besides my day job so after the week of Vector War there's indeed some exhaustion. Two years ago, we had more than 40 players and I still could handle it manually. At that time, I was a bit afraid of a big flood of players that would come over from Facebook groups. But for some reason I don't know, those crowds never found their way here. If numbers of players would increase significantly to something more than 75, I would automate score submissions and the creation of the high-score list, but would try to stick to this forum. I think that playing and competing is one part of the Vector War, another important part is communication and interaction. Simply reading what people write here during or right after the Vector War and you'll understand what I mean. There is some atmosphere and vibe which makes the Vector War special."
Your author will definitely be participating in next year's Vector War, with a plan to rank higher than 7th. We also invited fellow Time Extension contributor and Vectrex owner Ashley Day to participate, but he claimed his Vectrex was "broken" and "in the shop", apparently being "repaired". Which just seems like excuses to us. Ray Charles was blind and was still able to be an incredible jazz player! Grasp that nettle Ash, join the tournie!
If you own an original Vectrex, consider picking up a flashcart, such as the VectMulti ($100; shipped from the UK, despite the USD price). It's great for the hundreds of free new games available. And hopefully we'll see you at Vector War XVI. Join us, fellow enthusiasts!