Don Bluth's Space Ace II: Borf's Revenge for the Apple IIgs is released today

Antoine Vignau

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Aug 30, 2022, 5:25:19 AM8/30/22

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Dear All,

Don Bluth’s Space Ace II: Borf's Revenge for the Apple IIgs is released today. This is our 8th gift for the 30th anniversary of Brutal Deluxe Software.

Will you rescue Kimberly again? Borg is back with a revenge and has the power to vanquish the nations of Earth. Watch Ace in action @ https://youtu.be/AiB-SpwGzdo
All our other Don Bluth titles are now available with a better audio quality.

Get it at https://brutaldeluxe.fr/products/apple2gs/spaceace2/

#AppleII forever!

Antoine Vignau & Olivier Zardini

Antoine Vignau

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Aug 30, 2022, 5:30:59 AM8/30/22

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The correct link to the video is https://youtu.be/2MbY2LbXz_U

Thank you,
Antoine & Olivier

magnusfalkirk

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Aug 30, 2022, 11:14:52 AM8/30/22

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Antoine,

Thank you so much for this. I never knew there was a second Space Ace game. Once again you and Olivier have done a great service for the GS community.

magnus

Anthony Ortiz

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Aug 30, 2022, 11:50:03 AM8/30/22

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> > Antoine & Olivier
> Antoine,
>
> Thank you so much for this. I never knew there was a second Space Ace game. Once again you and Olivier have done a great service for the GS community.
>
> magnus

You beat me to this, and I want to second the motion, you guys are pillars of the Apple II community and I also want to thank you guys for keeping the Apple II alive. Many thanks, I didn't even know there was a Space Ace II either!

Anthony

Todd Holcomb

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Aug 30, 2022, 1:02:05 PM8/30/22

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On Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 4:25:19 AM UTC-5, ntn.v...@gmail.com wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> Don Bluth’s Space Ace II: Borf's Revenge for the Apple IIgs is released today. This is our 8th gift for the 30th anniversary of Brutal Deluxe Software.

Wow - eight gifts in eight months! It's like the twelve days of Christmas. :) Thank you!!

Mitchell Spector

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Aug 31, 2022, 6:41:32 PM8/31/22

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Anthony Ortiz <anthon...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Thank you so much for this. I never knew there was a second Space Ace game. Once again you and Olivier have done a great service for the GS community.
>

>You beat me to this, and I want to second the motion, you guys are pillars of the Apple II community and I also want to thank you guys for keeping the Apple II alive. Many thanks, I didn't even know there was a Space Ace II either!

Not only was there a pseudo sequel, but I just recently discovered
evidence ReadySoft completed an Apple IIGS port of Space Ace 2:

https://archive.org/details/stx_Space_Ace_II_Borfs_Revenge_manual/page/n15/mode/2up

ReadySoft had the following in the works, with these release dates...

1990 - Dragon's Lair* (a canceled prototype version exists)*
1991 - Dragon's Lair: Escape from Singe's Castle
1991 - Space Ace 2: Borf's Revenge
1992 - Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp

We DID get Space Ace that shipped on 9 floppy disks in 1990,
but despite apparently being completed and ready to ship, the
other titles were unexpectedly cancelled. Likely because of the
shrinking Apple II market by the early 90's.

It's also possible they had poor performance on a stock IIGS.
Space Ace animates beautifully at 2.6 MHz, but the others not
so much...unless you install a ZipGS or TWGS. Maybe that is
why their release was cancelled last minute?

At any rate, it is absolutely fantastic Brutal Deluxe has given
us all the above titles (and more!) all these years later! I cannot
thank you guys enough!

Mitchell Spector

Tempest

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Sep 1, 2022, 9:25:59 AM9/1/22

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> 1990 - Dragon's Lair* (a canceled prototype version exists)*

Really? First I've heard of that. Any pictures?

Mitchell Spector

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Sep 13, 2022, 1:33:07 AM9/13/22

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Tempest <reiche...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> 1990 - Dragon's Lair* (a canceled prototype version exists)*
>
>Really? First I've heard of that. Any pictures?

To quote from a thread posted here some 16 years ago:
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.apple2/c/tThdV4vsAqw/m/ySgryUzndocJ

Hard Code wrote:
"DL2 was never ported to the GS, although there was a 16-disk greyscale
prototype of DL1. There was also a GS version Kung-Fu Master that was
passed around internally amongst a few cracking groups."

If you have a look, you were actually part of that conservation. :)
It wasn't the only time I heard of this Dragon's Lair port. I just remember
it never was completed, but the plan was a release sometime between
1989-90. What Brutal Deluxe gave us is likely identical to what we
would've seen had ReadySoft completed DL1.

I have a suspicion those ReadySoft games were all completed but
shelved was poor performance on a stock IIGS (the shrinking market
didn't help much either). Space Ace was one of the few that played
decently, apart from a few scenes towards the end.

Mitchell Spector

Tempest

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Sep 13, 2022, 9:07:48 PM9/13/22

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> Hard Code wrote:
> "DL2 was never ported to the GS, although there was a 16-disk greyscale
> prototype of DL1. There was also a GS version Kung-Fu Master that was
> passed around internally amongst a few cracking groups."

That sounds suspicious, why would the IIgs version be grayscale? Also, first I've heard of a IIgs version of Kung Fu Master. Has anyone actually seen that?

Mitchell Spector

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Dec 23, 2022, 1:37:30 AM12/23/22

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On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 18:07:46 -0700 (PDT), Tempest <reiche...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>> Hard Code wrote:
>> "DL2 was never ported to the GS, although there was a 16-disk greyscale
>> prototype of DL1. There was also a GS version Kung-Fu Master that was
>> passed around internally amongst a few cracking groups."
>
>That sounds suspicious, why would the IIgs version be grayscale?

The video was a direct 1:1 digitization of the original laser disc arcade
game, and 4-bit greyscale captures detail best. Much like Ron Mercer's
Mini-Movies or the DreamVision demo. Edward Armstrong talked about
being part of the team that worked on the GS version (see the thread
"Dragon's Lair for the Apple IIgs" from March 2022).

The Readysoft version digitized static backgrounds from the laser
disc, but were *heavily* touched up and reworked for 16 or 32 colors.
Ditto for anything that animated atop those backgrounds. This prototype
version was simply going to playback raw video/audio, like the arcade.

>Also, first I've heard of a IIgs version of Kung Fu Master. Has anyone actually seen that?

It was probably "Sensei" from Miami Software in France. That was
more a clone of International Karate, I think he simply mixed up the name.

Mitchell Spector