Ship
From Sega Retro
| Ship |
|---|
| System(s): Sega Mega Drive |
| Developer: Technopop |
| Genre: Shoot-'em-Up |
| Number of players: 1-2 |
| Status of prototype(s): Source code found and compiled, cartridge found and dumped |
| Sound driver: GEMS |
Ship is an unreleased Sega Mega Drive game by Technopop, notable for being distributed by Sega of America as sample code for the new system.
Two very early builds of the game have been preserved - the first of which was compiled from source code unearthed by drx of Hidden-Palace.org on September 24, 2007 as part of a development kit for GEMS,[1] and the second of which was dumped from an EPROM cartridge with a Sega of America visitor sticker sent to Modern Vintage Gamer on December 21, 2020. There are byte differences between both ROMs, but are otherwise the same game.
Gameplay
Two ships fight with Asteroids-like controls and a toggleable shield, all while maneuvering against the gravitational pull of the star in the screen’s center. Numerous physics and gameplay features can be altered via the options screen, like the reversing the gravity or arming each player with infinite lives.
History
In the Fall of 1990, Technopop founder Randel Reiss was approached by Sega of America’s VP of Product Development Ken Balthaser about creating a sample game for the still-young Sega Genesis whose code could be distributed to interested developers. As Reiss was the first American outside of Sega to develop for the 16-bit platform, his experience could greatly aid in Sega of America’s kickstarting of the American game development market. Thankfully, he accepted.
Choosing to recreate one of his favorite games, 1962’s Spacewar!, and with extremely limited documentation of the console, Reiss was able to fully program Ship with a Sega logo, title screen, menus, sprite rotation and scaling, and two-player gameplay. Once completed, a single cartridge of the game was produced. Originally housed in a blank Sega Genesis cartridge, Reiss decided to humorously affix a Sega of America “Visitors” sticker to the front of the cartridge and found it fit like an offical cartridge label.
Sega purchased the source code from Reiss and distributed Ship as a sample game with development kits, one of which would be unearthed by drx in 2007.
The original cartridge was then sent to Piko Interactive, and was later purchased as part of a larger auction lot by a man known as "John" in 2018. Around December 2020, John emailed Modern Vintage Gamer about the cartridge and sent the cartridge to him so it can be dumped. When contacted about it via email, Reiss confirmed that the cartridge was indeed his work, and was the only cartridge ever made of Ship.[2]
The title screen originated as conceptual artwork by Gary Jones, who did similar work for Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin and Zero Tolerance.
ROM dump status
| System | Hash | Size | Build Date | Source | Comments | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
|
128kB | Compiled source code |  (24 kB) (info)
|
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|
|
512kB | 1990-05 | EPROM cartridge | (15 kB) (info)
|
Page |
External links
- Hidden palace release page (source code version)
- Video about the cartridge by Modern Vintage Gamer
