I <3 Sea Duel on Microvision

[Rev. Rob]

Have you played your Microvision today? I did. I took it to work to show a couple of people. We had a little Sea Duel tournament.

 

What impresses me is how fun they made it. Even in 2009 I still enjoy it.

 

Here's a little bit of game info:

 

According to the front of the box, Sea Duel is a "Naval Battle of Wits." This is a very interesting strategy game involving a submarine and a battle ship. The player can choose to control either vessel. When controlling the submarine the object is to torpedo the battleship; when in control of the battleship, the object is to hit the tiny sub with a deadly depth charge. Players plot their moves on the battle grid and then the naval dance plays its self out.

 

I took some screens from my unit:

 

 

The three pixel character is the "SHIP." The one pixel character is the "SUB."

 

 

This is the intro Screen.

 

 

Here is the player select screen. Choose to play as the ship or the sub; choose player vs. computer or player vs. player.

 

 

Here's the score: 4 to 7.

 

 

Front of the box:

 

Back of the box:

 

My real question is this. A lot of Microvision games were really clones of other popular games, especially one that appeared on the 2600. Is "Sea Duel" unique, or is it a clone of another game that's out there?

[MS-DOS]

Oh wow, a functional Microvision? Lucky.

[Rev. Rob]

Oh wow, a functional Microvision? Lucky.

 

I hear people say this, but I've bought a few from eBay, and never with a problem. I kept one for myself, gave the others out as gifts. I think the whole "screen rot" thing is over hyped. I bet there are some working units on eBay right now for < $50.

[MS-DOS]

That "4" in the last screenshot is looking mighty dim. These bad boys would make a great addition to a collection, though. Weren't they the first handheld cartridge based systems?

Edited September 30, 2009 by MS-DOS

[frenchman]

Have you played your Microvision today? I did. I took it to work to show a couple of people. We had a little Sea Duel tournament.

 

My real question is this. A lot of Microvision games were really clones of other popular games, especially one that appeared on the 2600. Is "Sea Duel" unique, or is it a clone of another game that's out there?

 

 

Maybe Seawolf (arcade) comes close.

 

 

My microvision works fine too, I got the German version of Sea Duel, which is called, funnily enough, See-Duell:

Edited September 30, 2009 by frenchman

[Rev. Rob]

Have you played your Microvision today? I did. I took it to work to show a couple of people. We had a little Sea Duel tournament.

 

My real question is this. A lot of Microvision games were really clones of other popular games, especially one that appeared on the 2600. Is "Sea Duel" unique, or is it a clone of another game that's out there?

 

 

Maybe Seawolf (arcade) comes close.

 

 

My microvision works fine too, I got the German version of Sea Duel, which is called, funnily enough, See-Duell:

 

 

Ya, sometimes the screen has ha few pixels that are a little faded, but it looks a lot worse in that pic than it really is.

 

I think it's a pretty big difference between Sea Duel and Seawolf. Seawolf is an action game, whereas Sea Duel is a turn based strategy game.

 

Speaking of European carts, I just have one, which is Super Blockbuster. I love the way the European carts have the hard plastic buttons instead of the flimsy plastic film that we had in the US. Also, the packaging was way cooler. I like the felt plastic trays a lot more than the styrofoam that used in US packaging.

Edited September 30, 2009 by Rev. Rob

[Video]

I thinkpart of the reason that it looks like that is that IIRC, it takes like four cycles to print an entire screen, so only a quarter of it is actually active at once. It's OK for the old school LCD it is, but it causes problems when taking pics, and is part of the reason it doesn't work with LED's (though I'm sure you could pipe it through a controller of some kind, but really...

[Rev. Rob]

I found this Microvision Simulator. It's programmed in JavaScript, and while it's not perfect, and it doesn't do any of the more complex games, but it does a pretty decent Blockbuster. It seems that the project is currently dead. Which is too bad, because I'd love to see Sea Duel finished, or a version of Cosmic Hunter!

Edited September 30, 2009 by Rev. Rob