Reverse-engineering the arcade game Sinistar
Reverse-engineering the arcade game Sinistar
The fifth issue of Quarter Up!, a newsletter about pinball and retro arcade gaming. Articles in this issue: Coverage of Houston Arcade Expo 2023, games seen on the road, the reverse-engineering of Sinistar, league schedules, a recap of the year’s pinball games, and a special offer from Buffalo.
This is an article about reverse-engineering the 1983 arcade classic Sinistar. Sinistar is one of the most technically-impressive arcade games of the 1980s, and one of the first to use voice samples. The game is notoriously difficult, and the author, SynaMax, wanted to rebuild the game with an easier difficulty, and also restore stereo sound.
Since the original assembler for Sinistar is considered lost, SynaMax re-wrote the source code to target the Macro Assembler. One of their accomplishments was restoring the original title screen for Sinistar (see above) from the 1982 prototype release.
Played this bitch when it came out, but never just past the second spawn. Thanks for the blast from the past.