Hi folks, I'm dpatts
I created an account here because I want to celebrate!
This week I finally beat a game I first started played nearly 30 years ago:
Created and developed by Ben Haller of Stick Software, Solarian II is one of the first color games for the Macintosh computer. It's a Galaga-inspired space shooter, renowned for its quirky sounds and polished gameplay, and winner of countless awards.
Today it can be emulated on a variety of platforms.
It now has it's own page at Speedrun.com and I recommend starting with this introductory guide to the game
In short. the game has 16 levels, a final boss, and (up to) 6 challenge rounds. A full playthrough takes 20+ minutes, and it can be frustratingly hard to beat.
This game has brought me back again and again over the years, taunting me with its difficulty. This week, I finally beat the game, and as far as I am aware, this is the first time such a run has been recorded and uploaded. Below is the complete run on YouTube -- skip to Level 15 to see some of the most fun and intense gameplay:
This is an excellent game and I highly highly recommend it.
The bar has been set at 20:59, and it's ready for someone to take on the mantle. I challenge you to do better! Thanks for reading and I look forward to engaging with the community
-dpatts
Hi dpatts & GG for your 1st completion!
Reminds me of when I finally beat Prince of Persia 1.5 years ago for the 1st time. Then started speedrunning it :D
Since you seem so keen to advertise the game, there is an advertisement thread in the speedrunning forum: https://www.speedrun.com/forums/speedrunning/hl23s
Now to improve your time ;-)
Thanks! Yes, it's a good feeling, all that perserverence paying off. Thanks for the suggestion, I have added a reply to the thread. In the words of The Chemical Bros. The time has come to.... O P T I M I S E (Or optimize for all the freedom spellers out there)
This looks like a ChatGPT answer. It's appears like useful information, but then it's wrong on so many counts. Part of the response is confusing the game with an unrelated sci-fi book.
The game was developed by Stick Software, not Rainbow Arts. The previous game Solarian I was never publicly released. Rather, it was a project for a summer school programming class. It was in black and white, ran smoothly but the developer didn't do anything with it.
The Secret History of Mac Gaming - Richard Moss (2018), Bitmap Books
The bullet points are mostly correct, but power-ups are not dropped by defeated enemies. The enemies are varied, but there's no "ships, robots, and even space stations". No music either, just sound bytes.
A couple of the sound effects are sampled from Prince albums - which to me is just fantastic.
