Hello everyone! It’s December 12th, and today just so happens to be a very special day… it’s my birthday!

One year ago today, I made what may just be my absolute shortest post announcing to the few followers that I had at the time that it was my birthday. It wasn’t anything special, and the only reason I had uploaded it at all was because I was proud to share that the twelfth of December is a date I look forward to all year.

This year, however, I wanted to try a little something different. Instead of settling for a three word post (I still can’t get over how short that post is.), a few months ago I had an idea of what I could talk about when 12/12 rolled around.

I’ve mentioned this briefly once before in the answer to an ask that had been sent in, but there’s a very good reason that my blog name is ‘StarDestroyer81'— it’s a combination of the subtitle and release year to one of my all-time favorite arcade games, Bosconian!

Unfortunately, Bosconian isn’t all that well-known of a title, especially when pitted against some of Namco’s other smash hits, such as Pac-Man and Dig Dug. So, for my birthday and just in time for Bosconian’s 40th anniversary..

Let’s talk about Bosconian: Star Destroyer!

Bosconian was released by Namco in… well, 1981! The game began to show up in arcades in Japan on November 7th of that year, whereas its was released worldwide (By Midway Games) the next month.

I’ve spent such a long time digging around to try and find an exact date as to when in December the worldwide release happened (How cool would it be if it was on my birthday?), though I did find the date of December 5th, though don’t take this as the definite date.

Whenever I talk to my friends about Bosconian, a majority of them have never heard of it (Appropriately so), and so I describe it to them 'The Star Way'— it’s like Galaga, but a million times cooler. Bosconian is a multi-directional space shooter type of arcade game, and unlike Galaga, not only can you move wherever you’d like instead of being limited to the x-axis, but you can move and shoot in eight different directions!

Bosconian puts you as the player in the esteemed Starfighter, a spacecraft which has but one goal: to seek and destroy the base stars (Also known as 'Orbitals’), which are large, green enemy bases. It’s no easy task, however, as the entire time you’re being chased by oncoming fleets of enemy ships on top of steering clear of asteroids and Cosmo Mines, which can be destroyed for additional points.

Each level of Bosconian gives you a set number of base stars to vanquish, whose destinations are conveniently identified on a map on the right side of the screen (A blinking red dot signifying where you’re at). Blast all the base stars and you’re off to the next parsec!

The base stars have six circular cannons which can open fire should you get too close, though its projectiles are relatively easy to avoid should they not be too clustered. To defeat the base stars, you have two options: the standard way, or the patented “Star Method”.

Regularly, you would shoot work your way around each base star and shoot out all of its cannons. Once all six are destroyed, the entire base star blows up. Conversely, if you go about the ever-cool “Star Method”, if you line up your shot just right, you can shoot between the bottom or top two cannons to shoot directly at the core of the base star, which blows it up immediately. It’s SO satisfying!

Sometimes, the game alerts you to go into 'battle stations’, which means a select base star has sent out a fleet of five enemy ships in a certain formation that will hone in on your location. By being reckless, it can be easy to not see where they’re coming from and run right into them, but with quick handiwork, they can all be blasted for a nifty point bonus provided none have left the screen.

You might also notice that on the right side of the screen, there’s a section reading your ship’s “condition”. Having a Condition Green means that everything is relatively lax, and there’s not much action afoot. A Condition Yellow means that things are looking a bit dangerous, and is the usual condition for a majority of the game.

And then there’s Condition Red…

Before I get into specifics about Condition Red, I should also mention the importance of one of Bosconian’s most vicious foes: the dreaded Spy Ship. Easily spotted by its bright yellow color, the Spy Ship appears from a random corner of the screen, and will glide around the player at a distance before vanishing off screen. If you see the Spy Ship, stop everything and destroy it before it leaves. If you don’t,or if you take too long in a level…

Condition Red happens. Heart-pounding music sets in as an enormous amount of enemy ships will fly in from all directions directly toward your ship. If you don’t act fast and blast the remaining base stars, you’re as good as space junk.

Something that sets Bosconian apart from a lot of other space shooters at its time was the fact that it— in a forty year old game, mind you— included voice acting. Throughout your cosmic escapades, various voice lines will play, and right here is a list I’ve made of all of them and when they occur!

“Blast off!” - Played when starting a stage.
“Alert! Alert!” - Played when an enemy ship draws near.
“Battle stations!” - Played when a fleet of five ships leaves a base star, in search of your ship.
“Spy Ship sighted!” - Played when a Spy Ship appears. This is an excellent audio clue to know when to start looking for it.
“Condition Red!” - Played when… uh, take a wild guess.

While it’s neat that Bosconian has these voice samples, I personally didn’t hear them in action until long after I played it for the first time on the first Jakks Pacific Namco Plug-and-Play, which lacked the samples. And, additionally… some of these voice samples don’t even sound like what is actually being said.

For example, for a while, these are what I heard instead:

“Lock/Loaf all!”
“Alive! Alive!”
“Battle station!”

’Spy Ship sighted!’ may just be the clearest sample of them all, but ’Condition Red!’, on the other hand… when I was little, I had no clue what was being said, and didn’t use contextual clues to look to the right of the screen.

Speaking of taking visual cues… what does all of this even look like? If you’d like to check out the original, 1981 arcade version, here’s a longplay of it where you can check out my long descriptions of in-game goings-on in action!

Alternatively, check out the Jakks Pacific port, which was the version of Bosconian that not only I grew up with, but also set my all-time personal best score of 505,750on!

I think that’s about everything that I’ve wanted to dive into regarding Bosconian, and I hope that with my explanations that anyone reading this has a better understanding of what Bosconian is. It’s such a cool game that deserves a whole lot of recognition! I hope you’ve enjoyed everything this post has had to offer, as I’ve waited quite a bit to write about this game!