Wilmunder's Star Raiders II released

[Savetz]

Released for the first time today — a holiday present from Aric Wilmunder: the unreleased, almost-finished sequel to Star Raiders for the Atari 8-bits. He created and developed it while working in the R&D lab of Atari coin-op.

 

(This is not the Last Straighter rebranded game. Aric told me, “When The Last Starfighter didn’t do well in the theaters and marketing re-branded the Atari 800 Last Starfighter game as Star Raiders II, they didn’t take into account that there was already an actual sequel to Star Raiders that was just a few months away from completion. I was the designer and solo engineer who worked for about a year on the project as a member of an R&D team inside Atari Coin-Op.")

 

My interview with Aric is published on the ANTIC podcast today. Our discussion of Star Raiders II starts at about the 30 minute mark. http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-104-aric-wilmunder-star-raiders-ii-temple-of-apshai

 

Here's video of it in action, and the ATR file and documentation is attached.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb03mSdMaYc

 

The files are attached, and also at https://archive.org/details/StarRaidersII_Wilmunder

 

Wilmunder_Star_Raiders_II_8-2.atr

Star Raiders II Controls.pdf

The Authoritative Star Raiders II v0.3.pdf

 

-Kevin

[+Stephen]

Wow - never heard of this before!

[Goochman]

Looks like a 16k update to the original. Better graphics and a few more bells and whistles.

[luckybuck]

Wow! Kevin, you are a miracle! Great find! That is Christmas 2 weeks in advance.

 

In the 80's I heard rumors from Prof. Atari, "the invincible brain", that there is a version out there with not just front and aft view, but with board, starboard, top, down view!

 

If Aric may give us the source code, we can mix it with the recently published Star Raiders I source code?

Maybe multiplayer with one Atari as server? Via Internet? Via BT? Just guessing.

 

Further, there is a great successor as an app for iOS: Star Rangers

 

If just Tom Hudson and Lee Papas could find a way to give it away? 30% for Apple, 10% for the person, who makes it iOS 8 and 9 ready and 60% for them. Would give $20 for a reselling of it.

 

Great times we live in. Kevin, again, you made our year! Just speaking for whole Europe.

 

Thank you.

[Android8675]

Wow, so Star Raiders v1.5, nice very nice, so far. I likey.

 

[luckybuck]

@Goochmann

No, it is 21.21 KB object code, that exceeds the 16 limit in large.

[Tempest]

Oh wow, I'm going to have to take a look at this.

[adam242]

What a fantastic surprise!

 

I cannot WAIT to get home and try this out... And download the new podcast. Thank you!

[luckybuck]

Cool is, that now, you have landscapes, like in Rescue on Fractalus.

You can see now your fighter, can fly down to a planet and use the key B for the boosters to airborne atmosphere.

Edited December 10, 2015 by luckybuck

[Tempest]

So how complete is it?

[+Bryan]

Awesome. I'm off to watch the video!!

[Jinroh]

Man so cool, definitely going to load this up!!

[Lost Dragon]

Wowza! Just bloody awesome.......

 

Thank you so much for this.

[Grevle]

Omg what a suprise . A real classic sequel to Star Raiders. So almost Complete ? whats missing ? Ok i've read the document. So the author wanted to add more enemy ships and improve AI.

Edited December 10, 2015 by BioFreeze

[Rybags]

Find of the year, probably find of the decade.

 

Some impressive aspects to the game, will have to try it out later on.

[Mathy]

Hello luckybuck, guys

 

Maybe multiplayer with one Atari as server? Via Internet? Via BT? Just guessing.

 

 

MultiLink/GameLink2 interface. Or (if it's ever finished) the ALAN-K interface.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[+Stephen]

Fun game - very playable even in current state. It would be great to see this finished!

 

One minor quibble. The damage screen doesn't show in GTIA mode on a PAL machine.

[+playsoft]

Wow, what a find! Looks fantastic.

[luckybuck]

So great, when dreams come true and we are all part of it.

 

Well, a Novice mission I could complete. But fighting on the planet surface is new and hard. It will take some time to finish a commander mission. But winter is still coming. :-)))

[+Stephen]

So great, when dreams come true and we are all part of it.

 

Well, a Novice mission I could complete. But fighting on the planet surface is new and hard. It will take some time to finish a commander mission. But winter is still coming. :-)))

I managed to complete novice mission and get Lieutenant Class 2. I could certainly do better, since I took me forever to figure out the planet sequence, and I was doing some flying around and exploring, so certainly wasted lots of energy.

[CannibalCat]

So good... did he release source code as well?

[+Stephen]

So good... did he release source code as well?

Not yet - bunch of us are hoping to see it though. Even those of us (like me) who won't understand a line of it or be able to update it.

[+doctorclu]

Oh this is everything I hoped this sequel would be.

 

Now to make a cart and add it to my Star Raiders collection!!

[fujidude]

Not yet - bunch of us are hoping to see it though. Even those of us (like me) who won't understand a line of it or be able to update it.

 

Well, it would be real swell if he let it out for us. I don't think there's much risk of losing any commercial potential these days, but the nostalgic value to the few of us who remember would be great.

[Savetz]

The source code is probably trapped on a broken Corvus drive. It may be recovered in time.