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Space Harrier – Developer Interview Collection

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Re: Space Harrier – Developer Interview Collection

#11

Post by wvenable »

cnasc wrote: post #7
ArtWomb wrote: post #2

Thanks! I love all the Sega-era "billboard" style of games. There was actually a set of SegaScope 3D Glasses for use in the Sega Master System that could render a stereoscopic effect right on a NTSC-standard television set! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_shutter_3D_system

> There was actually a set of SegaScope 3D Glasses for use in the Sega Master System that could render a stereoscopic effect right on a NTSC-standard television set! I had this! I'm too young to have played the Master System in its prime, but one day at my dad's office someone put a for sale ad on the bulletin board saying they had a bunch of old game systems and games. I bought the whole lot (a Genesis, NES, Master…

I played a store demo of those Sega shutter glasses as a kid, exactly once. It didn't leave a super positive impression but I still remember it.

Re: Space Harrier – Developer Interview Collection

#12

Post by b_tterc_p »

favorited wrote: post #5

I really only knew of Yu Suzuki because of Shenmue. I had no idea he was a hardware engineer as well, and led AM2.

I only knew of Space Harrier because it was in Shenmue at the local arcade. I didn’t know it was a real arcade game. But I probably burned through an equivalent amount of virtual quarters on it in game.

Re: Space Harrier – Developer Interview Collection

#15

Post by will_pseudonym »

bangonkeyboard wrote: post #9

"President Nakayama used to visit our office from time to time. The thing with Nakayama was, if he saw that the graphics were complete in your game, he would tell you it was done and it was time to release it. Nevertheless, we couldn’t just hide the game from him and show him nothing when he came by. So I rigged up a little switch underneath my desk…when I pressed that switch it would wipe the color RAM. You could wi…

It also ended up leading to the color of the sky used in the game.

"When I pressed that switch it would wipe the color RAM. You could wipe the color RAM, and it wouldn’t affect the rest of the game—everything would keep running, just the colors would get all glitched. To a layperson, it would look like the game wasn’t complete yet. Well, one time we did this, and randomly, the colors of the sky looked extremely striking. Then I used our development tool ICE to stop the CPU and extract the color RAM data, and those became the colors we used for Space Harrier."

Re: Space Harrier – Developer Interview Collection

#16

Post by Pulcinella »

lostgame wrote: post #14
mysterydip wrote: post #4

For those interested, Lou's pseudo-3D page goes over some of the techniques used in this and similar games: http://www.extentofthejam.com/pseudo/

Oh, wow, this was a fantastic read, thank you!

See also this video https://youtu.be/K7gWmdgXPgk to see how the snes mode 7 (though really you also need HDMA) perspective transformation worked.

The whole series of videos is amazing.

Re: Space Harrier – Developer Interview Collection

#17

Post by JohnBooty »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #10

That is fascinating. I'd always wondered why Space Harrier's world was so goddamn weird and psychedelic, and reading that they consciously based it on Roger Dean makes so much sense. For reference: https://www.nme.com/photos/the-far-out-prog-rock-album-art-o... https://gallery.rogerdean.com/

Same here. I've boggled over this game forever, and I hadn't known they directly drew inspiration from Roger Dean.

I also always suspected that the furry dragon from the bonus stages was inspired by the luck dragon Neverending Story, but I'd never seen it directly confirmed until now. Neat.

Re: Space Harrier – Developer Interview Collection

#20

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

I was amazed when I it came out and was so fast, I've spent a lot of money on Space Harrier as a kid and the color checkered bottom inspired some effects in the demos I've written back then.

Out Run though brought even more 3d feeling with the up and down.

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