Danger Zone was planned to be released for the
Sega Mega Drive (aka Sega Genesys) but since I got no documentation and
failed to produce sound, the project was aborted.
A playable image of the Danger Zone engine can be
downloaded by clicking onto the screenshots, the Sega and X-Troll logos
are not included in the demo. I have added them, to show that we leave the
world of Atari here.
How to play Danger Zone with a real Mega Drive
You will need a Super Magic Drive or a similar
device to play Danger Zone on the real hardware. With that device you can
simply load the image from a floppy disk or transfer it via a parallel
cable. However the Super Magic Drive might be rare nowadays so you might
want to try an Emulator instead of a real machine.
How to play Danger Zone with an Emulator
The image works
fine with Mega Drive / Genesys emulators like Gens,
which I recommend since it's nearly perfect. You will have to adjust some
settings in Gens to get a proper setup.
Set Country to Europe (PAL), because Danger Zone was coded for the
European Mega Drive versions, otherwise the visible screen area will be
too small. You have to use the Menu CPU > Country > Europe to get
that done.
Enable vsync, to get a smoother display
without glitches. Just make sure that the menu Graphic > VSync is
checked.
Set frameskip to automatic to get the
approximated speed of the real version. You simply have to select the menu
Graphic > Frame Skip > Auto.
Configure your joypad or some keys if you
don't have a real game controller. Controls can be configured with the
menu Option > Joypads...
Gamepad Layout
Directional pad |
Move Spaceship |
Button C |
Fire |
Button A |
Change Speed |
Start |
Enter Menu Mode |
How was it developed
It was developed on an Atari ST which was connected
to a Sega Mega Drive via a Super Magic Drive copy-station also known as
SMD800. Of course I used Turbo-Ass for coding and NEOchrome for the
graphics of this unfinished game. Beside that I rewrote the transfer routines from the
SMDsend. This allowed me to assemble directly
into the Super Magic Drive without the need to put anything to disk.
A
Z80 debugger was started too, but was never finished. I intended to use it
for reverse engineering the usage of the Mega Drives sound hardware.
© 1993 Heinz Rudolf (Cyclone/X-Troll)
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