Get ready to Scramble!

Scramble, the classic side-scrolling shooter released by Konami way back in 1981. Whilst there have been several unofficial ports of this title to our breadbin, most recently Thomas Kite's excellent conversion released in 2015, none have interested me more than the longdelayed version by the super-talented Lars

Verhoeff “Mirage”. It got off to a flying start in 2009, with several previews displaying a somewhat advanced state of the game. Then, silence. Years passed, and then from out of nowhere, a beautiful title screen that utilised the borders was released on PixelJoint.

The immediate change of note was that the game title had shifted from Scramble 2010 to Scramble 2020, with the premise that the game would be delivered to a hungry audience in said year. It was not to be, and we are still waiting.

So... what is the holdup? Talented musician Stellan Andersson “Dane” was employed to take on this project and has been working on the splash screen music (the in-game music approach is still to be decided).

The game itself is more or less complete, with all six levels being faithful to the original, with the only difference being that the final boss level has had a fancier change. The level graphics are nothing short of amazing (as expected), with all in-game graphics in bitmap-mode, with the tiles being streamed in from disk whilst the player progresses through the changing environments in a quest to destroy the infamous “base” in the grand finale.

Scramble 2020 and its availability to the digital wilderness seem to be imminent, all hope has been pinned on completion of the music and Lars wrapping up the final package.

We eagerly await!