STAR SLING 4K
© 2006, Vectorzoa.com

In the distant galaxy of Varachnotrex, the sport of the moment is Star Sling; piloting giant mechanised spiders in space, players compete as a team or against each other to mine the most asteroid minerals.
CONTROLS

Star Sling uses a unique control method to support its furious arcade game play; the analogue joysticks are used to provide immediate placement of the cursor anywhere on the screen. At the start of each level players are given a few moments to place their Star Spider (using Button 2) or accept the default location.
Note when using ParaJVE the analogue joystick for player 1 may be simulated by the mouse
Button 1
Fires the Star Sling, the sling will start at the point where the cursor was when Button 1 is pressed, by keeping button 1 held down and rapidly moving the joystick, the sling will stretch out enabling asteroids to be ensnared. Upon release the sling will contract causing the contained asteroids to collide.

- Colliding 2 or more matching asteroids will cause them to explode and disappear, points will be awarding and a small amount of energy will be regained.
  Energy is shown via the small bar at the top of centre of the screen.
- Colliding 2 or more non-matching asteroids will cause them to fragment, creating new asteroids. The use of the Star Sling in this fashion consumes a small amount of energy.

Button 2
Activates your Star Sling in tractor mode. Select an asteroid by placing the cursor over it and hit Button 2. Your Star Spider will immediately match its velocity. This is the only way you can control the movement of your Star Spider, however using a few rapid taps of this button you can control your Spider very effectively.

GAME PLAY

The goal is to clear all asteroids for each level. The number of asteroids and variations will increase over the levels. Colliding with asteroids consumes huge amounts of your "shield" energy and prolonged exposure will result in death. Play either alone or with a friend simultaneously. You can choose whether to work as a team or against each other. Colliding mismatching asteroids near your opponent is a very nasty trick.
You only get one life in this game though, so don’t start something you can’t finish!

GAME MODES

- 1 or 2 player simultaneous
  Note with the current version of ParaJVE it is not possible to control the second spider.
  This will be fixed in a future ParaJVE release.
- Game Mode 2 - Only available in (this) Turbo Edition and Limited Edition
  This mode removes speed retrictions on the gameplay and generally speeds things up considerably. On a real Vectrex this can result in up to 120fps.

NOTES

Star Sling 4K was written in 2006 as an experiment to recreate realistic 1982 development pressures. Back then games were only 4K (a few 8K) due to component costs and written in short timescales.
Vectorzoa decided to produce a game within the following constraints for an authentic challenge :

- It must be original so as not to conflict with any licensing or copyright
- It must be fun to play (or as fun as a typical GCE release)
- It must support 2 player simultaneous play (a rarity in GCE games)
- It must support analogue control (a rarity in GCE games)
- It must fit within 4096 bytes of ROM.
- The entire programming/development time must be less than 40 hours.

Star Sling Turbo Edition on Vectrex cart form is available exclusively from madtronix.com.
Star Sling FE/TE/LE is not permitted to be included on any multicarts without express written permission from Vectorzoa.
For modern high quality homebrews (written without the above restrictions!) check out http://www.vectorzoa.com and its exclusive distributor http://www.madtronix.com

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