Another new Sega Master System game is on the way from the talented homebrew developer @badcomputer0 — the creator of modern Master System games like Frontier Force and Blast Arena.
Astro Climber, as the new game is called, is designed to be a simple arcade platformer for the Sega console; it is comprised of 32 stages, and has players climbing a tower filled with all sorts of dangerous enemies and tricky platforms (conveyor belts, falling floors, etc), which gradually make the game harder the further along you get.
To help you climb to higher platforms, players are equipped with a grappling hook that will let them pull themselves up to out of reach places, while oxygen pick-ups are also available, which look to be tied into the scoring mechanics, how you obtain extra lives, and your survival.
"I'd sort of wanted to make a very simple arcade game as a small project and started experimenting with vertical scrolling," @badcomputer0 told me. "The grapple hook was added to make the vertical movement more interesting, although I'm sure I was channeling Bionic Commando too. I played a few games, including Ice Climber, later for ideas on things like enemy design for this type of game."
According to @badcomputer0, the original intention for the game was to try and fit it all into 32Kb of memory, in order to spark creativity, prevent feature creep, and achieve the goal of creating a game that could theoretically fit on a Sega Card — a memory format used for the Mark III / Master System.
However, this original plan eventually went out of the window, after the developer heard the soundtrack the musician Love Penguin (formerly Polaria Poyon) had created for the project.
"It was for the best," said @badcomputer0. "I commissioned the musician Love Penguin to make something small but catchy and he'd seen my prototypes and made something more modern to match them.
"It was the right decision and so I expanded the ROM size to fit the music. If I were to attempt the 32Kb limit again I'd create more simple visuals where a more simple soundtrack would match, similar to early Sega Card games on SMS."
As @badcomputer0 went on to tell me, the game will be released very soon, with the current aim being to launch it for free digitally on itch on October 20th to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Sega Mark III release in Japan.
It is currently in playtesting, with a team of volunteers also helping @badcomputer0 to translate the game's manual into various languages ahead of the launch.
Also, in case you're wondering about @badcomputer0's other in-development project that we covered a few months ago — the promising shoot 'em up Razing Core — the developer confirmed it is still making progress, stating "it's about 25% complete" right now and that he is "planning to release it next year". A demo of that game is available now on itch.